SOCAR AQS drills first multilateral well in South Caspian basin

SOCAR AQS has successfully completed the engineering and drilling operations of the first multilateral well for SOCAR's Azneft PU, Report informs referring to the company.

To unleash the full potential of the field during the drilling operations on the West Absheron field, SOCAR AQS launched a number of new initiatives, and conducted geological and geophysical studies across the wellbore at various intervals. As part of the studies, the formation pressure was measured, core samples were taken at various intervals, reservoir properties of rocks, saturation of formation with oil and gas were identified, and lithological log of rocks and other parameters were verified.

General Director of SOCAR AQS Samir Mollayev said that as a result of the geological and geophysical studies conducted by the company at the West Absheron field, sand control system at drilled wells was introduced, filter sizes were verified, and the customer has achieved 4 to 5-fold increase in production through running filters in an open hole. Based on the successful results, the possibility of drilling of multilateral wells, given the field’s potential, was assessed. During the well design process, SOCAR AQS worked with Azneft PU as one team and contributed to the delivery of this first pilot project in the South Caspian basin.

Iftikhar Gasimov, chief geologist for SOCAR AQS, said that during the drilling and completion works, advanced techniques and technologies were applied, which contributed to the delivery of high-quality wells. Jointly with the customer, SOCAR AQS looked into the possibility of drilling multilateral well and putting horizons with the same pressure into joint operation, and the design and drilling of the first multilateral well in the West Absheron field was carried out.

As part of the project, SOCAR AQS closely cooperated with Baker Hughes and jointly conducted technical feasibility study of the project. Notably, Baker Hughes played an important role in the successful implementation of the project.

The experience shows that depending on a number of sidetracks, multilateral horizontal exploration well drilling technology increases well production through expanding of drainage area in production horizons, and the most importantly enables to significantly reduce the cost of the drilling process. Multilateral well allowed for two production horizons to be jointly run in the field and for the first time in SOCAR’s history, and assured the delivery of the drilling and completion of the multilateral well to the customer before the deadline.

Currently, the completion activities in the well are ongoing by conducting operations to reach the production regime. SOCAR AQS will build on this success and continue to deliver high-quality wells to the customer.

SOCAR AQS LLC was established in 2007 by SOCAR, Nobel Oil Services and Abşeron Qazma Şirkəti (AQS) as a joint venture providing integrated drilling and well management services. Nobel Oil Services is the key shareholder of SOCAR AQS.

The core activity of SOCAR AQS is to provide engineering and planning of wells, drilling of oil and gas wells, drilling of directional wells, drilling of horizontal wells, completion/development of wells, workover of wells, sidetracking, and drilling of multilateral wells.

The company has been the member of International Association of Drilling Contractors since 2009. SOCAR AQS is ISO 9001:2015; ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 certified for provision of offshore oil and gas well drilling and well repair services, casing running services, blowout equipment and X-mas tree repair and testing services.

In 2017, SOCAR-AQS was certified as per requirements of Spec Q2 Quality Management System of API (American Petroleum Institute) on provision of offshore oil and gas well drilling and well repair services.