Baku, Azerbaijan, June 4
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
French Total will be the first company to receive a new generation rig for drilling at Absheron field, Khoshbakht Yusifzade, first vice-president of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan said June 4.
He made the remarks during the 22nd international Caspian Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference in Baku.
"We made this decision because the field has already been discovered," said Yusifzade. "Everything is ready there for drilling and it is the field [among the new fields] where we will get the first gas."
"Therefore, we decided to transfer the rig to Total," he said, adding that the drilling at the field would likely start in 2018 and the first gas will be produced in 2021.
Yusifzade added that the volume of gas production there would depend on the number of drilled wells.
The work for construction of a new modern drilling rig for SOCAR started in 2013, and completion is expected by late 2016. The new rig is designed for drilling wells with a depth of up to 8,000 meters at a water depth of 1,000 meters.
The cost of the project for construction of a new modern floating drilling rig in Azerbaijan is around $1.117 billion.
The first volume of gas from the Absheron gas and condensate field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea will be received in Q4, 2021, according to the forecasts. The final investment decision on the project will be made in Q4, 2017 and the beginning of the drilling of the first well is expected in the last quarter of 2019.
The discovery of Absheron field was announced in September 2011.
According to SOCAR geologists, the reserves of Absheron could amount to 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million metric tons of condensate.
Absheron project participants include SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) - 40 percent, the French companies Total - 40 percent and Gaz De France Suez - 20 percent.
Edited by CN
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