Offshore staff
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan – Dragon Oil expects to step up development drilling later this year on the Cheleken Contract Area (CCA) of the Caspian Sea, offshore Turkmenistan.
Currently, two rigs are in operation. One is a leased platform rig that is drilling the side track well Dzheitune (Lam) 28/151A. The other, a jackup, is batch drilling the Dzheitune (Lam) 21/180 and 21/181 development wells, and will continue to work for Dragon through May 2015.
During the second half of this year, the company expects to take delivery of three more rigs. Two platform rigs are expected to start drilling on the Dzhygalybeg (Zhdanov) later in 2013, while the new jackupCaspian Driller is expected to arrive in mid-year.
Dragon has converted one well in the target Dzheitune (Lam) 75 area into an injector-type well, and plans to start constant injection of water next month. Currently, intermittent water injection is being performed on one well in the Dzheitune (Lam) 13 area, and the company is considering further extensions of the waterflood project.
The Dzhygalybeg (Zhdanov) A platform is currently being installed and is expected to be ready for drilling in 2013. The Dzhygalybeg (Zhdanov) B platform is under construction in Dragon’s yard in the harbor area in Hazar, and is due to be installed and ready for drilling in 2H 2013.
Further contracts should be issued soon to build and install up to five wellhead and production platforms in the Dzheitune (Lam) field and associated pipelines. These facilities will likely be built and installed in 2015-2016.
In the meantime, the company plans to make more slots available for drilling and side tracking of wells from the existing platforms on the Dzheitune (Lam) and Dzhygalybeg (Zhdanov) fields.
Dragon intends to quadruple crude oil storage capacity at the central processing facility in order to accommodate production growth – the company is targeting 100,000 b/d of oil from the CCA in 2015.
Tendering will start later this year for an engineering, procurement, installation, and commissioning contractor.
4/23/2013
