Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend S.Aliyev / The multi component seismic company Reservoir Exploration Technology ASA (RXT) has received a contract award from BP for a survey in the Caspian Sea. Estimated contract survey duration is approximately five months.
Under the contract, RXT will acquire 4C seismic data over the Shah Deniz field, offshore Azerbaijan in the South Caspian Sea. The field is operated by BP.
The survey will be acquired with RXT's third operation, RXT3, which is scheduled to commence operation in April/May over the Kashagan field offshore Kazakhstan. Acquisition over the Shah Deniz field is planned to commence in the fourth quarter 2007, at contract rates favourable to RXT's annualized projections.
The Caspian Sea has huge areas of prospective acreage requiring high quality seismic data for future development. The VectorSeis Ocean technology, combined with RXT's innovative acquisition methods, is ideally suited to meet these data requirements, together with the highly varied operational challenges, Michael Scott, CEO of RXT, comments.
The contract complements very well the Kashagan project already awarded to RXT and further validates RXT's strategy to keep a crew permanently in the Caspian region, the company said.
Reservoir Exploration Technology ASA (RXT) is a marine geophysical company specializing in multi component seismic sea-floor acquisition. Multi component seismic solves several imaging challenges that cannot be resolved with towed streamer seismic, and targets improved oil recovery from existing fields. The technology also gives better data quality for exploration, and is also the solution where towed streamers are impractical due to high density of platforms and/or shallow waters. The company has offices in Oslo, London and Houston.
Shah Deniz gas field is the largest natural gas field in Azerbaijan. The field is situated in the South Caspian Sea, offshore Azerbaijan, approximately 70 kilometres south-east of the capital Baku. The field spans shallow to deepwater from 50 to 600 metres (approx. 160- 2,000 feet) and covers approximately 860 square kilometres (330 square miles). The Shah Deniz field is operated by BP (25.5%). Co- venturers are Statoil (25.5%), SOCAR (10%), Total (10%), Lukoil (10%), NICO (10%), and Turkish Petroleum Overseas Company Limited (nine per cent).