BP Liquidates Well in Caspian Sea

BP Liquidates Well in Caspian Sea

Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
by E.Ismayilov, Trend News Agency, Baku, Azerbaijan

BP is the technical operator for development of the gas condensate field Shah Deniz in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea. It will drill a new well SDX-07 for more advanced drilling in the field, a source in the oil and gas market said.

BP previously began drilling the SDX-07 well, but operations were suspended due to problems of lifting the casing pipe. The pipe was to be lowered to a depth of 1,100 meters, but could only descend to a depth of 900 meters.

"The well will be eliminated," a source said. "The drilling rig will be moved to another location to drill a new well."

The source did not mention a set date of liquidating the old well and its replacement with the new one.

He said that drilling is conducted from the Istiglal rig.

Drilling of the new well is planned to be completed by late 2011.

Two offshore platforms will be installed and 30 underwater wells will be drilled to extract additional 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year within the Shah Deniz -2 project. Peak production is forecast at over 8.6-9 billion cubic meters. Gas production may be brought up to 25 billion cubic meters per year under the second stage of development.

The field's reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters during the first stage. The contract to develop Shah Deniz was signed June 4, 1996. Participants are BP (operator) -- 25.5 percent, Statoil Hydro -- 25.5 percent, NICO -- 10 percent, Total -- 10 percent, LukAgip -- 10 percent, TPAO -- 9 percent, and SOCAR -- 10 percent.