Azernews.Az

By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade

Multinational energy companies which have been operating in Azerbaijan for many years enjoy stable profitable and prospective business life in the country. Seeing Azerbaijan’s burgeoning oil and gas sector, plenty of companies joined projects in Azerbaijan in the 1990s and reap benefits now.

Since 1992, Norwegian multinational energy company Equinor has been operating in Azerbaijan’s energy sector. Jointly with the state oil company SOCAR and other international companies, Equinor has worked to help Azerbaijan’s thriving oil and gas industry realize its full potential.

Today Equinor has an interest in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oil field, as well as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which runs from Baku to the south Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.

Early next year, Equinor plans to start drilling the first well in the Aypara area in the northern part of the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. The Aypara structure is located 25 kilometers north-west from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) field and 90 kilometers away from Baku.

According to Equinor’s project, the well at Aypara will be standard, it will be drilled vertically to the depth of 3,400 meters with the water depth of 140 meters. This may take two or three months.

As the source involved in the project stated, there is a possibility to start drilling in spring 2020, but it will become clearer after the completion of drilling at the Karabakh field.

According to the contract concluded between Equinor and Azerbaijan’s Caspian Drilling Company Ltd. (CDC), CDC will drill two wells at the Karabakh oilfield for Equinor, where Equinor serves as project operator for the field development with participation of SOCAR. Equinor and SOCAR each hold 50 percent stake in the project.

Depending on the completion of reconstruction and modernization of the Dede Gorgud semi-submersible drilling rig, Equinor plans to commence the drilling at the Karabakh field in late September - early October. The reconstruction and modernization of the rig is being carried out at the shipyard of CDC.

Drilling at the Karabakh field will last approximately three months or more depending on the progress of the work.

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Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1

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