In order to ensure oil production growth, Azerbaijan needs to explore onshore fields, because all the fields, which are planned to be developed in the Caspian Sea, are gas condensate ones, Khoshbakht Yusifzada, Senior Vice President of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), told journalists.
He said SOCAR soon plans to begin works to look for hydrocarbons in the secondary sediments onshore jointly with the US ConocoPhillips oil company.
“If the studies, which are planned to be carried out within 2-3 years, bring positive result, the exploration drilling could start onshore after five years,” Yusifzada said. He added that it is easier to carry out drilling onshore from the viewpoint of costs.
Speaking about possibility of development of onshore fields jointly with the foreign companies, he said it is the matter of the future. “The decision will be made if necessary,” Yusifzada added.
In 2011 SOCAR and ConocoPhillips companies signed the agreement on joint study onshore Azerbaijan. The document envisages study of the secondary sediments in the northern regions of the country. According to the geologists, the depth of lying of the secondary sediments could reach about 10,000 meters, which exceeds depth of the productive beds of the current wells as twice.
* The last oil field was discovered in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea in 1985. Three big gas condensate fields have been discovered during the past 28 years as a result of the numerous exploration works: Shah-Deniz in 1999 with 1.2 trillion cub.m. of gas and 200 million tons of condensate, Umid in 2010 (200 billion cub.m. of gas and 30 million tons of condensate) and Absheron in 2011 with 350 billion cub.m. of gas and about 40 million tons of condensate. In the future it is expected to discover gas condensate fields Babak, Zafar/Mashal, Shafag/Asiman and Nakhchivan. Geologists believe that new oil field can hardly be discovered in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
** At present hydrocarbons are extracted on 58 wells in Azerbaijan, of which 40 ones are located onshore. 19 of them are developed by SOCAR. During 2012 Azerbaijan extracted 42.9 million tons of oil and condensate, of which only 1.7 million tons or 4% fell to the onshore fields.—0-
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