Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug. 10 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
In the near future under the advance boring program of the second stage of development of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz offshore gas condensate field drilling of a shallow third well will begin, an oil and gas market source told Trend on Friday.
Drilling of wells is made from Istiglal floating drilling rig. Despite the fact that at present the blowout preventers are on the certification in the UK, drilling of shallow wells is possible from them.
"Two wells at a depth of 1100-1150 meters have already been drilled at the field, and drilling of the third well will soon begin," the source said.
He said that in total, it's planned to drill four relatively shallow wells, which will then be drilled to the end.
The drilling of shallow wells is conducted in order to avoid lagging behind the schedule set out in the second phase of field development.
For the production of additional 16 billion cubic meters of gas a year under the Shah Deniz 2 two offshore platforms will be installed and more than 20 subsea wells drilled. Peak production from the field in the first stage of development is projected at nine billion cubic meters. It is predicted that in the second stage of field development, gas production can be brought up to 24 billion cubic meters a year.
Gas reserves of Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters.
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed on June 4, 1996. Participants to the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 per cent, Statoil - 25.5 per cent, NICO - 10 per cent, Total - 10 per cent, LukAgip - 10 per cent, TPAO - nine per cent and SOCAR-10
percent.