Total Postpones Absheron Drilling
Drilling of the first well in the offshore Absheron field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea will start in February-March of this year, said Vitaly Beglyarbekov, assistant to Azeri state-owned Socar's vice president.
French giant Total had been due to start drilling in January, but a source at Socar told NGW this week that, because of geological considerations, some updating of the drilling rig is needed.
In phase one, production of 1.5bn m3/yr is expected, increasing to 5bn m3/yr in the phase two. Drilling work will be conducted with a new semi-submersible drilling rig named after the country's late president, Heydar Aliyev.
According to Beglyarbekov, first gas production from Absheron will be in 2020-2021. Previously Socar had announced a target for this of late 2019. The source said that some solving some commercial and project details took longer time between Total and Socar, therefore, the extraction of the first gas had to be postponed to a later date.
The phase-1 project for the development of the Absheron field, which will also produce 700,000 mt/yr of condensate, is estimated at about $1bn. Production is planned to be carried out from only one production well.