Baku, Fineko/abc.az. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) announces that it has artificially restricted daily debit of the 2nd exploration well at offshore gas field Umid in the Caspian Sea, discovered in November 2010.

SOCAR first vice-president Khoshbakht Yusifzadeh says that because of non-readiness of gas pipelines it was used a 10-mm pipe socket in the well - otherwise there will be nothing to do with produced gas and condensate.

"Even with the 10-socket daily debit of the well reached 1.2 million cu m of gas and 150 tons of condensate. The pressure on the buffer in 600 Bars shows that in the process of application of socket with diameter of 16 mm the well debit can increase few fold,” Yusifzadeh said.

Operating pressure in the well, according to Yusifzadeh, is 1,100-1,200 Bars.

"We’ve already started the construction of gas pipelines to run to exploration platform Umid-1, which will be completed in August or September 2012. Before completion of the pipelines we will begin drilling of the 3rd well on Umid field, and totally 6 wells will be drilled from the platform," Yusifzadeh said.

The VII horizon is productive (depth: 6 340-6 356 m).

Previously, the Company’s specialists had suppositions about a possible debit of the well at the level of 2.5-3 million cu m per day. Wellhead and bottomhole pressure of the well is higher than in wells of mega- field Shakh Deniz (reserves of up to 1.2 trillion cu m), but the debit is lower. If clean gas is extracted on Shah Deniz, the Umid gas contains a lot of impurities, including sand.

"At present, field’s reserves are estimated at 200 bn cu m of gas and 40 million tons of condensate," said yesterday SOCAR senior vice president Khoshbakht Yusifzadeh at conference Caspian Oil & Gas.

Earlier he pointed out that the company could start extraction from the field since September 2012. At the same time yesterday SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said that there is possibility that development of Umid offshore field will be delayed for "future generations".

In this connection there is no clearness with concluding PSA type agreement on work in Umid either.

"Nobel Oil is our partner on joint venture carrying out work on Umid but the issue of concluding PSA agreement has not been determined yet though remains topical," Abdullayev noted.

Earlier UN expert on energy and Baku Nobel Heritage Fund’s head Togrul Bagirov stated that in technical terms the field has not been opened yet. According to him, after technical opening of Umid the SOCAR will conclude a PSA contract for field development with private company Nobel Oil. SOCAR will keep a 80% stake in the project. Nobel Oil will receive a 20% equity stake.

By early March SOCAR finished drilling of the second exploration well at Umid field to VII horizon project depth and started work on well development that may take up to 40 days.

SOCAR considers drilling of such a difficult well for 8 months an excellent result. Testing of the well should prove out SOCAR assumptions on well debit at level of 2.5-3 million cu m a day. At that, well head and bottom hole pressure in the well will be higher than in the Shah Deniz field wells but the debit is lower. If gas produced from Shah Deniz is pure, the Umid one will have a lot of impurities, including sand.

The well drilling started on 4 June 2011. Its project depth

Its design depth is 6 500 m with vertical deviation of 500 m. The project cost of work is 64 million manat. The work is fulfilled from stationary platform Umid. Another 5 or 6 wells will be drilled from this platform.

The field was discovered in November 2010 due to first exploration well Umid-1. The V horizon is productive (5 850 m). During the drilling it is expected to uncover the VII horizon at depth of 6 350 m.

12.06.2012 11:53