Socar starts drilling second well at Qosadas offshore structure
BAKU. April 15 (Interfax) - The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (Socar) has started to drill a second exploration well at the Qosadas offshore structure.
"Drilling of the first exploration well was suspended for technical reasons, and it has now been decided to drill a second well, with projected depth of 3,500 meters," Khoshbakht Yusifzade, Socar's first vice-president for geology, geophysics and field development told reporters.
Yusifzade also said Socar was rounding off a new well at the Umid field. "We've drilled 6,000 meters of a planned 6,450 meters," he said.
A single well at Umid is currently producing 700,000 cubic meters of gas and 100 tonnes of condensate per day. The new well is expected to produce 1 million cu m of gas per day.
Umid, in the deep-water section of the Caspian Sea 75 km from Baku, is estimated to contain at least 200 bcm of gas and 30 million tonnes of condensate. It went commercially on stream in September 2012.
Qosadas is 15 km off the northern section of the Absheron Peninsula at depths of 10 to 50 meters.
