TPG-500, a self-elevating platform, built for oil and gas extraction at Shah-Deniz field under Phase 1, has been sent for installation at the sea, Trend reports.
Bad weather conditions prevented to send the rig on April 1. After the delivery to the place of installation the platform will be tested to carry out installation work due to complete in the third quarter of 2006.
$1.35bln was spent on the platform building. The total cost of the project, including upgrade of Zykh building site, is $1.6bn.
Total weight of the platform is 32,000 tons. The platform has capacity to drill wells with the depth of more than 7,000 meters and deflection radius of more than 3,000 meters. Platform installations are capable of extracting 28.5 million sq. m of gas and 60,000 barrels of oil per day. TPG-500 will explore 12 wells in total. Four of them were already drilled in the frames of the outdistancing drilling project.
First gas is expected to run via South-Caucasus pipeline on 30 September 2006.