Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.4 / Trend, E. Ismayilov /
Heydar Aliyev semi-submersible drilling rig will start work in spring 2012 within the contract signed between the British BP and the Danish Maersk Drilling, which is an operator of the rig, a source in oil and gas market told Trend on Tuesday.
Earlier, the sides signed a medium-term contract, which envisages drilling work within contracts implemented by BP in Azerbaijan. Most of the work will account for advance boring within the second phase of the Shah Deniz field development.
The source said it was previously assumed that the work for BP will begin in March, but due to the postponement of the completion of drilling work on the Absheron offshore field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, they will begin a little later than planned.
Drilling rigs are not enough to drill a great volume of well within the large-scale development of the "Shah Deniz" field. For this purpose, BP wants to attract Heydar Aliyev installation to the work. Two offshore platforms will be installed and 26 subsea wells will be drilled on the Shah Deniz field within full-scale development of the field.
Peak production at the field is projected at 9 billion cubic meters and 50,000 barrels of condensate at the first phase. Additional 16 billion cubic meters of gas is planned to be extracted from the field within the second phase.
Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed June 4, 1996.
Participants in the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 percent, Statoil Hydro - 25.5 percent, NICO - 10 percent, Total - 10 percent, LukAgip - 10 percent, TPAO - 9 percent, SOCAR-10 percent.