Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 23
By Emil Ilgar, Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
Iran North Drilling Company, specialized in Caspian Sea projects, expressed willingness to cooperate with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), Fatemeh Yazdani, head of Marketing Department of company told Trend.
North Drilling Company (NDCO) has drilled two wells in Sardar-e Jangal oil and gas field, located in deep waters of Caspian Sea by the Amir Kabir semi-submersible drilling rig.
The company also drilled some 60 wells for Dragon company in Turkmenistan's shallow waters in Caspian Sea. Yazdani said that during 11 months of current fiscal year, NDCO has drilled 7 wells for Turkmenistan.
Recently, NDCO extended contract with the Dragon Oil Company for 11 years.
Yazdani added that it would be a great honor to work with SOCAR, especially to establish a joint venture to develop Iranian projects in Caspian Sea.
Iran has recently offered 4 projects in the Caspian Sea to foreigners for exploration and development on the basis of a new contract, called the Iran Petroleum Contract.
Those projects are the blocks 24, 26, 29 and the Sardar-e Jangal field.
Iran divided its exploration area in the Caspian Sea to 46 blocks. Eight of them are of first priority for Iran.
The Islamic Republic had carried out 3D seismic operations in an area covering 4,000 square kilometers of the sea at the blocks 6, 7, 8 and 21 between 2003 and 2005 using its Pejvak vessel.
Yazdani added that NDCO is also interested in E&P projects (Exploration and Production), if SOCAR wants to enter Iran and intends to receive fields from the Oil Ministry.
"We are ready to work with them," she said.
He also said that NDCO won a tender on developing the gas layer of Iraqi Kurdistan's Khurmala field in 2015 and ready to cooperate with SOCAR in this project as well as other foreign projects.