Lukoil begins drilling in new north Caspian prospects

Lukoil spudded an exploration well in the Shirotno-Rakushechnaya prospect structure north of VI Grayfer field in the northern Caspian Sea.

The well will be drilled with the Astra shallow water jack up rig in 4.5 m of water to a target depth of 1,650 m. The structural tectonic zone features Yury Korchagin, Valery Grayfer, and Vladimir Filanovsky fields, discovered in 2000, 2001, and 2005, respectively.

The company has begun study of Khazri and Titonskaya features of a new block south of the same area within the East Sulaksky bank. The Neptune jack up floating rig is drilling a second well in the Khazri feature to a target depth of 5,200 m in 45 m of water. The well will explore for oil and gas deposits in terrigenous and carbonate sediments of the Jurassic-Cretaceous period.

As part of its Caspian drilling campaign, the company is constructing a sixth well at the Yury Korchagin field riser block platform. The horizontal well was drilled with the Mercury jack up floating rig with borehole length of 5,164.79 m and completed with a MultiNode intelligent completion system, used for the first time in Caspian projects. Daily target rate is 348 metric tons, which will stabilize field production.