Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.15 / Trend, E.Ismayilov /
Drilling a sidehole of the first exploratory well on the major gas field Absheron in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea is scheduled to begin in mid-April, a source in the company of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) told Trend on Wednesday.
Drilling of the well will be conducted from Heydar Aliyev floating drilling unit, operated by the Danish Maersk Drilling.
It is planned to drill a sidehole at the depth of 1,500 meters from the same well from the depth of 4,000 meters to get more information about the field.
According to the source, earlier work was completed on drilling a parent hole.
"In case of a good pace, drilling of the sidehole can be completed in June," the source said.
The project partners are SOCAR - 40 percent, Total - 40 percent and Gaz De France Suez - 20 percent.
The contract to develop the Absheron structure was signed on February 27, 2009 between SOCAR and Total. Later Total ceded 20 percent of share holding in the contract to the Gaz De France Suez Company.
The discovery of large gas field Absheron in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian was announced in September 2011.
The field's potential reserves are estimated at 350 billion cubic metres of gas and 45 million tons of condensate. Correspondingly, Azerbaijan's proven gas reserves have increased up to 2.55 trillion cubic meters.