The Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) is currently progressing through a three well sidetrack drilling programme (2 producers and 1 injector) and a well surveillance/intervention operation prior to spudding the A21 well, which will be an ERD (extended reach drilling) water injection well, planned for late 2006, Trend reports.
Drilling the second well, which will reach the total depth by the end of July, continues at Central Azeri. We plan to drill three more wells from the CA platform this year, all of which will be production wells.
The company has just spudded the second platform well, which is expected to be completed as a producer in September. We plan to drill one additional production well and start an injector as the fourth platform well this year.
The Phase 3 pre-drilling programme has continued successfully throughout the first half of this year using the Dada Gorgud semi-submersible drilling rig. The rig is currently in the shipyard for a planned five-year maintenance programme and an upgrade to the living quarters to bring the vessel up to BPs Caspian standards.
Prior to going into the shipyard in June, the rig drilled the initial appraisal and subsurface data gathering sections of the first pre-drill production well on the DWG platform location. Following the suspension of this well in April, we successfully installed the drilling template in June. In addition, the rig has drilled the appraisal and data gathering sections on one subsea water injection well on each of the two DWG subsea manifolds locations, two km northeast and southeast of the DUQ platform.
The rig maintenance and upgrade programme will continue until early August this year, after which it will return to the DUQ platform location to re-commence pre-drilling from the template.
In addition to the pre-drilled platform template wells, the DWG drilling campaign also includes six sub-sea water injection wells, which will also be drilled by the Dada Gorgud.