DRILLING WORK COMPLETED ON NEW EXPLOITATION WELL IN CHIRAG

Drilling work has been completed on the new exploitation well A-18 on the Chirag deposit (contracted site of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli). According to the Baku representative office of bp (operator of AIOC), the depth of the well was 6730 meters and drilled maximally away from the platform. Drilling work was carried out by the British-German alliance KCA/Deutag. As at today, 17 wells have been drilled from the Chirag platform of which 14 are exploitation and 3 - water injection wells to main seam pressure.. Exploitation wells drilled further away from the platform allows extracting oil from remote sites of the deposit without setting up separate platforms at these sites. It's worth noting that for the first half of this year, daily oil production from this platform has reached 134.5 thousand barrels of the maximum output capacity of 143 thousand barrels for this platform. Since the start of development of this deposit (7 November 1997) within the framework of the Early oil project to June 2003, a total of 27.8 million tonnes of crude oil has been lifted. The contract for the development of the block of deposits Azeri-Chirag and the deep sea Guneshli was signed on 20 September 1994 and came into force on 12 December that same year after ratification by parliament