A production record has been set on the Azeri-Chirag field in the Caspian after its first horizontal well was completed on 10 January.
Designed for a maximum throughput of 105,000 barrels per day, the Chirag 1 platform flowed 102,018 barrels on 27 January even through another four production wells remain to be drilled. Seven are currently in operation.
"The reservoir is good, and each well is producing more than the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) has forecast," reports project manager Steinar Storm-Olsen in Statoil Azerbaijan.
He is responsible for following up the group's interests in the AIOC.
Daily production from Chirag 1 averaged 48,000 barrels in 1998, 14,000 barrels higher than the original estimate.
Development of Chirag will be paralleled by studies of the eastern part of Azeri during the first half of 1999. Work is now under way on a revised concept for what is termed the Phase I project, says Mr Storm-Olsen.
Once the field has been fully developed, overall production could reach 800,000 to one million barrels of oil per day.