Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR is to build a new platform at the Caspian field Bulla Deniz in the area of the old one, where the accident occurred earlier, First Vice-President of SOCAR Khoshbakht Yusifzade told journalists on November 4.

"No other well will be drilled here. The drilling will be carried out from the new platform already, which will be located nearby," he said.

Yusifzade went on to say that the drilling of new wells from the old platform is not envisaged, but considering block reserves at the field, where the well showed a very large debit, a new platform will be built. The reserves of the new block, where a high result was achieved, are estimated at 10 billion cubic meters of gas.

Regarding the well rescued after the accident, Yusifzade noted that it is already in operation, and its daily debit is 1.2-1.3 million cubic meters of gas and 200 tons of condensate.

The fire flared up in the well at a depth of 5,868 meters and all 60 people working on the platform were evacuated.

According to SOCAR, the fire erupted on the night of August 17 during drilling work. A gas explosion occurred at 23:30 local time, followed by a fire. As a result of the accident 62 platform workers were moved to safety, with no casualties reported.

SOCAR said on October 25 that it has fully contained the accident in the gas exploration well at the Bulla Deniz field.

Bulla Deniz is estimated to contain 17 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and SOCAR has been developing the field since 1975.There are currently 15 operational wells at Bulla Deniz.

From 1975 to 2009, SOCAR extracted about 62 million metric tons of gas and 11 million tons of condensate from the field.