SOCAR subsidiary to buy new drilling rig by year-end

A subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Caspian Drilling Company Limited (CDC), is purchasing a new Explorer drilling rig, which will be delivered to the country by the end of the year, Report informs referring to a source in the oil and gas sector.

The drilling rig will be purchased from the international company Noble Energy.

Explorer, which belongs to the class of 5th generation semi-submersible drilling rigs, is built according to the same design as the Heydar Aliyev Semi-Submersible Drilling Rig.

The source did not say where exactly Explorer would drill. Most likely, it will be used in fields operated by BP.

Caspian Drilling Company is the first joint venture to provide drilling services in the Caspian region, founded in 1996 by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (55%) and SantaFe/GlobalSantaFe/Transocean (45%) after the signing of the production sharing agreement in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. On June 30, 2009, 45% of the shares of SantaFe Inc. were acquired by Caspian Drilling Company and, at the moment, 92.44% of the shares belong to SOCAR.

The company is the main drilling contractor for 16 production sharing agreements signed in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. During drilling operations, such fields as Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shah Deniz were discovered. During the period of the company’s activity, more than 100 deep-water production wells were drilled from the floating drilling rigs “Istiglal” and “Dede Gorgud” in 14 geological fields, including “Garabagh”, “Ashrafi”, “Dan Ulduzu”, “Azeri”, “Chirag”, "Guneshli", "Shah Deniz", "Nakhchivan", "Absheron", "Inam", "Kurdashi" and "Araz Deniz", as well as by drilling 114 directional and horizontal wells from underwater foundations in the eastern, western and central parts of "Azeri."