Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 8
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
SOCAR's first floating rig of the new generation may be constructed in Azerbaijan in May 2016, a source on the oil and gas market told Trend on Friday.
"After the new platform is constructed, commissioning and test work will take several months," the source said.
"Thus, the new drilling rig can be put into operation in September -October 2016," he said.
Regarding the construction work, the source said that it has been already started. The operations are being conducted rapidly. In particular, around 80 percent of the necessary equipment has been already obtained within the new platform construction.
"More complex elements and details are being prepared in Singapore," the source said.
The new Baku shipyard commissioned in September will produce the pontoon and upper decks of the installation.
Some operations will be carried out at the construction site of the Caspian Shipyard Company Ltd.
The first drilling rig of the new generation will be built for SOCAR's needs.
The operator of the drilling rig will be the Caspian Drilling Company (CDC) where a 92.44 per cent share is owned by SOCAR. Singapore firm Keppel FELS Limited is chosen as the plant construction contractor. In June 2013, CDC signed an agreement with this company for the construction work.
SOCAR head Rovnag Abdullayev said earlier that the cost of a new floating drilling rig including taxes will exceed $1 billion.
The new rig will be designed for drilling wells at depths up to 8,000 metres and at a water depth of 1,000 metres. The rig is planned to be constructed in 2016.
In particular, the rig will be used for drilling on prospective structures and fields in Azerbaijan, such as the Umid field and the promising structures Babek, Karabakh, Ashrafi and others.
Azerbaijan must build four new floating drilling rigs taking into account the implementation of big projects in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, in particular drilling on the prospective Babek structure, the Absheron gas condensate field development, implementation of the second stage of developing Shah Deniz gas condensate field and other projects.