BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 12. Azerbaijan's Caspian Drilling Company (CDC), an owner and operator of the largest floating drilling rigs in the Caspian Sea, with a controlling stake held by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), will prepare the Satti jack-up rig for operations in the Caspian Sea's Turkmen section, an informed source exclusively told Trend.
"The Satti rig, leased by the CDC from the Kazakh KMG Drilling & Services company for exploratory drilling in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian for bp from 2020 through 2023, will undergo minor adjustments and will be sent to drill in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian this summer," the source said.
According to the source, the contract for operations in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian is for five years, and the primary drilling contractor is Dragon Oil, which has a long-term cooperation program with the Turkmenistan government for hydrocarbon projects.
"CDC has reached an agreement with KMG Drilling & Services that, for the sake of expediency, the preparation of the Satti rig for drilling in Turkmenistan will take place at the CDC base in the Bay of Baku. Most likely, after this 'cosmetic' work, Satti will head to the Turkmen sector of the Caspian in June," the source noted.
To note, from 2021 through 2022, this Satti rig drilled exploratory wells in the SWAP (Shallow Water Absheron Peninsula) area of the Caspian Sea's Azerbaijani sector by order from bp.