BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21
By Anastasia Savchenko - Trend:
Production from Azerbaijan’s Karabakh field may help stabilize the country’s oil and gas market, Director of the Caspian Barrel Oil Research Center Ilham Shaban told Trend Nov. 21.
“In general, Karabakh is a hybrid field,” the expert noted. “There are oil and gas, as well as condensate strata. Based on the results of drilling an appraisal well, an appropriate development program for this field will be adopted based on the data collected.”
Shaban reminded that the Karabakh field was discovered almost 20 years ago, and according to assumed primary data, in the oil equivalent there are 30 million tons of conventional fuel - about 17 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 13 million tons of oil.
“Over a long time, changes could have occurred in the productive strata of the field; therefore, it is necessary to drill appraisal wells and find it out,” the expert emphasized.
Shaban added that in another sector of the Karabakh field, drilling is also possible to identify even more productive strata.
“The development of the Karabakh field is identical to the development project of the first phase of the Absheron field; therefore, there will be no difficulties,” the expert said. “The extracted products will most likely be shipped to the Oil Rocks settlement. I think that by mid-2020, the situation related to the development of this field will be clear.”
On March 13, Azerbaijan’s Caspian Drilling Company Ltd. (CDC) and Norwegian Equinor Azerbaijan Karabakh BV (Equinor) signed a contract for the drilling services at Karabakh field of Azerbaijan.
Equinor and SOCAR participate in the development of the Karabakh field on an equal footing based on the risk-service contract signed in 2018.
Equinor also signed with SOCAR a contract on exploration and future production sharing for the Ashrafi-Dan Ulduzu-Aypara (ADUA) exploration area.
The Karabakh oil and gas field, discovered in 2000, is located 130 kilometers to the east of Baku. The sea depth in the field varies in the range of 250-450 meters. The initial oil reserves of the field are estimated at 100 million tons.
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