Oil & gas news

HALF WELL DRILLED ON INAM PROSPECT

Drilling of the first exploration well on Inam prospect is underway, according to a source from BP, project operator. To date, the footage of 2,128 meters has been reached. Drilling is progressing on schedule.

Drilling of the exploration well commenced on December 21, 2000, projected well depth is 5,025 meters. Semi-submersible drilling rig "Dada Gorgud" is being used in the drilling in 137 meters of water. The work is expected to take 113 days to complete.

NEW GAS PIPELINE TO BE COMMISSIONED IN 2007

On the second stage of Azeri gas transportation to Turkey, a new gas pipeline will be built on the territory of Azerbaijan with the throughput capacity of 16-24 billion cubic meters a year. It is scheduled to be commissioned in 2007, according to a SOCAR source.

As is known, the first stage of preparations for Azeri oil transit to Turkey envisions reconstruction of the existing 490-km-long gas pipeline in Azerbaijan, the capacity of which is 10 billion cubic meters a year. At the same time, gas pipeline with the throughput capacity of a 16-24 billion cubic meters a year will be built in Georgia till the Turkish border.

AZERI SECTOR OF CASPIAN NOT STUDIED ENOUGH YET

Only 34% of Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea sector, which concentrates around half of the Sea's combined conditional fuel reserves, has been explored, SOCAR told AssA-Irada Thursday.

The deep-water section of the Sea, ranging between 500 and 900 meters with 5,000-6,000-meter-deep productive horizons, have not been studied well enough yet. Nonetheless, some experts estimate hydrocarbon reserves in the Azeri sector of the Caspian at 4 to 8-10 billion tons of conditional fuel.

RUSSIAN ITERA NOT VERY SUCCESSFUL

Russian ITERA has reportedly had to suspend Russian gas supplies to Azerbaijan, while the reasons (customs formalities) indicated in media did not sound very convincing. A recent newspaper publication suggested that ITERA had suspended gas supplies from Turkmenistan after failing to agree on their price.

According to a source in Ukraine, last Tuesday ITERA also terminated gas supplies to all thermal stations in Ukraine, saying that they would resume only after all the arrears (around 100 million Grivna) are cleared.

ECOLOGICAL SITUATION IN GURGAN-DANIZ SATISFACTORY

The ecological situation in the oil-bearing Gurgan-Daniz area is satisfactory. The natural self-purification process of the sea, superficial streams in the shallow portion and presence of tough ground lead to a systematic restoration of biological communities.

This is stated in the laboratory conclusion of the SOCAR department for complex offshore geological expertise, which has recently completed the Environmental Impact Assessment (IIA) on Gurgan-Daniz. Water-depth in the shallow portion of the area, which is located in the south-east of the Pirallahi field some 40 km from Baku, ranges between 2.5 and 7 meters.

This factor, together with intensive many-year operations on the area, leads to a high concentration of pollutants in the water. Thus, a slight over-concentration of phenol in the water has been detected. The other chemical composition indicators - acidity balance, radioactive background, etc., were within the allowed limit, although a part of them was close to the upper border.

AZERBAIJAN MAKING CONCESSIONS

A SOCAR delegation led by the head of its foreign investment section Valeh Alasgarov left for Turkey Thursday, according to a SOCAR source. Azerbaijan seems to have accepted Ankara's suggestion to supply 5 billion cubic meters of Shah-Daniz gas a year, as opposed to 2 million that Baku had insisted upon earlier.

In this connection, reconstruction of the existing gas pipeline, underway with the aid of Statoil, has been accelerated.

$22 PER BARREL ENVISIONED BY STATE BUDGET

The state budget has set a tentative controlling price per barrel of oil for 2001 at $22. The decision followed a lengthy analysis of the situation in oil exchanges and OPEC measures, deputy economics minister Ogtay Haqverdiyev told AssA-Irada Monday.

Specialists believe this price will be subject to changes least of all, especially as OPEC decided in January to curtail oil production to 1.5 million barrels per day since February 1, 2001 to maintain crude prices at $25-$26 per barrel.

Azernews

AssA-Irada