OREANDA-NEWS. February 19, 2010. The specialists of the Turkmengeologiya State Concern received a thick gas flow while testing well 1 in the Minara deposit in Yoloten Etrap, Mary Velayat. The geologists’ success devoted to the National Flag Day symbolically coincided with the Turkmen leader’s visit to Mary Velayat, where the President was attending the ceremonies of launching newly constructed facilities.

According to the Turkmengeologiya State Concern, testing well 1 was a stage of the complex activities carried on to determine well deliverability and complete it for commercial production. The daily flow rate received there through using the 20-mm connecting pipe made up over 1 million cubic metres that, according to experts, exceeds the production rate of the developed hydrocarbon pools.

The first success was achieved in the Minara field last year – while drilling the well produced a powerful gas flow with the absolutely free rate of 4.3 million cubic metres per day at a depth of exceeding 4,000 metres. According to geologists, this result along with those achieved last year convincingly evidence that the gas collecting mains discovered in the natural gas fields are high-yield and highly prospective.

It should be noted that taking into account the territorial closeness of the Minara deposit and the recently discovered Southern Yoloten-Osman deposit Turkmen and foreign specialists assume that a unique oil-and-gas accumulation region may exist in the Murghab Basin. The substantial natural gas accumulations discovered in Minara convincingly prove the most optimistic assessments of ‘blue fuel’ reserves in Southern Yoloten-Osman. As is known, the results of the audit conducted by the Gaffney, Cline & Associates firm last year classify this field among the four largest gas deposits in the world. The audit estimated the gas reserves in Southern Yoloten-Osman at the highest rate at 14 trillion cubic metres. The highest rate was based on the specialists’ assumptions that it was the Minara deposit that contained substantial gas reserves.

The specialists of the Turkmengeologiya State Concern continue exploration works in the Southern Yoloten-Osman and Yashlar fields and the neighbouring areas including Gunorta Garakel, Garakel, Jurji, Gazanly, Gundogar Yoloten and Gunbatar Yandakly. These works give new evidence to Turkmen geologists that these deposits and highly gas prospective areas may form the largest oil-and-gas accumulation region in the world.

Thus, Turkmen geologists’ discoveries convincingly prove the status of Turkmenistan as an energy power that guarantees long-term gas exports to all foreign partners.