Azerbaijan, Baku, May 2 /Trend E.Ismayilov/
The work on the sidetrack drilling of the first exploration well on the Absheron field in the Azerbaijani sector of Caspian Sea has been launched, a source of oil and gas market told Trend on Wednesday.
"The work has been launched," the source said. It is being conducted in the northern direction. It is planned that the sidetrack will be drilled to 1,500 meters.
The work on the well will be fully completed by autumn.
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) first vice-president on the geology, geophysics and exploration Khoshbakht Yusifzade said earlier that sidetracking will be made at a depth of 4,800 meters.
Drilling will be done from a floating Heydar Aliyev drilling rig, operated by the Danish Maersk Drilling. The decision to drill a sidetrack was taken in order to obtain more information about the field.
According to the source drilling of the well is planned to complete this fall.
Drilling of the main hole had been completed earlier, resulting in Nadkirmakinsk sand formation opening in a depth of 6875 meters. Currently, work is underway to test suites break.
Participants in Absheron are SOCAR (40 percent), Total (40 percent), and Gaz De France Suez (20 percent).
The contract on the Absheron Field was signed on Feb. 27, 2009, between SOCAR and Total. Later Total sold 20 percent of its equity participation to Gaz De France Suez.
In September 2011, Azerbaijan announced the discovery of large gas reserves on the Absheron field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
Potential reserves are estimated at 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million tons of condensate. Accordingly, the proven gas reserves in Azerbaijan increased to 2.55 trillion cubic meters.