Azerbaijan, Baku, August 21 /Trend, E.Ismayilov/
Two drilling rigs will provide all the necessary volume of drilling work planned for the second phase of development of the Azerbaijani offshore gas condensate field, Shah Deniz, a source close to the project told Trend on Wednesday.
According to him, the drilling of wells within Shah Deniz-2 in accordance with the approved schedule is planned to be completed in 2022.The agency's interlocutor believes that the drilling rigs named after Heydar Aliyev and Istiqlal will provide work for this schedule.
"The technical state of the drilling rigs is good, despite the fact they are have been in commission for quite a long time and they will cope with the project tasks," the source said.
According to him, additional drilling rigs may be involved only in the case of necessity, in other words in the case of technical problems in the rigs considered for drilling within Shah Deniz.
About two offshore platforms will be installed and over 20 subsea wells drilled for production of an additional 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year within Shah Deniz-2.
Peak production in the field within the first phase of development is expected to be around nine billion cubic meters. According to the prognoses, it will be possible to bring the volume of gas production to 24 billion cubic meters per year during the second phase.
The peak of production within the second stage of the Shah Deniz-2 project will begin from 2022 and last up to eight years.
Shah Deniz reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed on June 4, 1996.
Participants to the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 per cent, Statoil - 25.5 per cent, NICO - 10 per cent, Total - 10 per cent, Lukoil - 10 per cent, TPAO - nine per cent and SOCAR - 10 per cent.