Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend S.Aliyev / The Azerbaijan-US joint venture Caspian Drilling Company has set up a drilling well for subsea water injection on the Deepwater Guneshli.
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) announced on 2 May that drilling work is being carried out with the use of a Dada Gorgud drilling rig, which earlier completed a pre-drilling well program on the drilling of 7 exploitation wells and one for drilling returns pumping in this portion of the field.
The underwater pumping will be carried out in the Caspian for the first time. The east manifold will inject another 200,000 barrels of water per day into the Deepwater Gunashli reservoir through four subsea wells drilled from a single subsea drilling centre. The engineering and procurement is 20% complete with the delivery of all equipment (except flexible flow lines) on track for 2007.
The nature of this depleted reservoir requires water injection to be available for pressure support at the Phase 3 start-up.
The Phase 3 subsea water injection facilities deliver water to six injection wells drilled at two locations; three wells on the north flank of the reservoir and three on the south flank. The North flank is located approximately 3.2 km NW of the Deep Water Gunashli complex in 175m water depth. The South flank is located approximately 5.2km SWW of the PCWU-DUQ complex in 285m water depth.
This further manifold is located approximately 5 km of the Deep Water Gunashli complex in 225m water depth. The cost of all three underwater partsis estimated at $400 mln. The construction of the third part will allow the production of 50 mln barrels of oil from this part of the field.
The Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), signed in September 1994, envisages the development of ACG over 30 years.