Advance boring work on the western part of Azeri as part of the stage-2 project from the recently installed template has been completed. According to the Baku office of bp, the depth of each of the bore was 100 meters. The next stage will be drilling each of these wells to depths exceeding 3000 meters. The programme for the pre-drilling in the stage-2 envisages before erecting the platform on West Azeri the drilling of 10 advance bores.

The above mentioned work is being carried out on 9 wells since pre-drilling of the first advance well has been completed. It was drilled to the depth of 3011 metres.

Pre-drilling will help speed up the process of drilling after completing the construction of the platform.

Stage-2 envisages the development of western and eastern parts of the Azeri deposit. For this purpose it is planned that a platform for 48 wells with living quarters will be set up on the eastern part of Azeri.

Drilling of the first oil should start at the end of 2006. During the period of the Stage-2 oil production from Azeri should reach levels of about 800 thousand barrels per day.