Azerbaijan, Baku, May 15 / Trend A.Badalova /
Azerbaijan hopes to start construction of a new deepsea drilling rig in 2012 with a second to follow in 2013, to explore for new fields and appraise known hydrocarbon deposits in the Caspian, Platts reported with the reference to to the head of the Foreign Investment Department of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Vagif Aliyev.
"We feel the need to construct at least two new drilling rigs with most advanced design and capability of drilling in deep water and able to operate in high-pressure environments," Aliyev said at the CIS Oil and Gas Summit in Paris on Tuesday.
SOCAR earlier took the main decision to invest in the construction of new, modern drilling rig to be used for drilling the exploration and operating wells at sea depth of 8,000-10,000 metres given the sea depth of up to 1,000 metres.
The construction of such a rig is valued up to $500 million.
SOCAR will provide a rig to use in accordance with the "gaps" that occur during drilling operations.