BP will start exploration drilling in the shallow waters of the Absheron archipelago in August
Drilling of the first exploration well in the shallow waters of the Absheron archipelago (Shallow Water Absheron Peninsula, SWAP) will begin in the third quarter of 2021, according to Azerbaijan in Focus, reporting Turan News, citing the press service of BP-Azerbaijan.
Earlier, the company announced its intention to start exploratory drilling under the SWAP project at the end of 2020, but postponed this process to the second quarter of 2021.
“Drilling of the first exploration well in the shallow waters of the Absheron archipelago is to begin in August this year,” the company said.
The drilling will be carried out using a jack-up floating drilling rig (jack-up rig) “Satti”.
Based on the drilling results, BP expects to discover oil resources in this block.
In 2016, seismic studies were carried out in the shallow waters of the Absheron archipelago, which covered an area of 1.52 thousand square km, of which on land – 90 sq. km. Based on the results of seismic work in the shallow waters of the Absheron archipelago, three areas were selected for drilling.
The Production Sharing Agreement (PSA, PSA) between SOCAR and BP for the development and exploration work in the shallow waters of the Absheron archipelago was signed on December 22, 2014.
The contract area is about 1.9 thousand square km, 50% of the share in the agreement belongs to BP, 50% – SOCAR.