Offshore staff
MOSCOW – Exploration drilling has started on the Lukoil-operated ultra-shallow water Shirotno-Rakushechnaya prospect in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea.
The well, drilled from the jackup Astra, is north of the company’s ongoing V.I. Grayfer field development, in a water depth of 4.5 m (14.7 ft). Target depth is 1,650 m (5,413 ft).
According to Lukoil, the well is designed to investigate the same structural tectonic zone features as in the Yury Korchagin, Valery Grayfer and Vladimir Filanovsky offshore fields, discovered in 2000, 2001 and 2005, respectively.
In addition, the company is exploring the Khazri and Titonskaya features within a new block south of this area within the East Sulaksky bank.
Here a second well is under way in a water depth of 45 m (147 ft) from the jackup Neptune, with a planned TD of 5,200 m (17,060 ft). The well will explore for oil and gas deposits in terrigenous and carbonate sediments of the Jurassic-Cretaceous period.
At the riser block platform on the Yury Korchagin field, the jackup Mercury has started drilling a sixth (horizontal) producer well which will feature a MultiNode intelligent completion system, a first such application in Caspian projects.
The targeted production rate of 348 MM tons/d (383 tons/d) should help stabilize the field's overall production.
06/29/2020
