The operator of Azerbaijan’s Umid-Babek offshore gas development project plans to start drilling two appraisal wells at the Umid field in the second half of this year in a bid to boost the asset’s natural gas output, two sources familiar with the drilling programme told Upstream.
Authorities in Baku are hopeful that Umid and its adjacent Babek field together contain the Caspian Sea’s second largest recoverable reserves of gas after the BP-operated Shah Deniz gas deposit which has estimated gas reserves of about 1 trillion cubic metres.
Increased natural gas production from the Umid and Babek fields is essential to Azerbaijan’s ambitious plans to increase volumes of pipeline exports to the European Union in the next several years as the bloc seeks to replace imports of Russian gas.
