OREANDA-NEWS. September 08, 2010. This August  the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) reduced drilling by 6% against July of the year.

This year’s drilling operations are still equivalent only to 56.1% of drilling for 2009 (168,182 m).

SOCAR informs that if not to take into account drilling operations by joint ventures (JVs) and operating companies (OCs) 11,169  m were drilled in August versus 11,886 m in July, 13,176 m in June, 12,750 m in May, 10,847 m in April, 11,248 m in March, 12,890 m in February, 10,463 m in January of 2010, 12,770 m in December and 17,399 m in April (last year’s best index) of 2009.Drilling for 2010 still totals 94,429 m against 168,182 m for 2009 and 202,954 m for 2008.

At that, this August development drilling made up 9,264 m and exploration drilling 1,905 m (with 203 of prospect drilling) against 9,946 m and exploration drilling 1,940 m (with 379 of prospect drilling) in July. The best index of exploration drilling in 2009 was registered in October (2,699 m).

In 2010, development drilling still totals 88,670 m, exploration drilling 5,759m and wildcat drilling 1,044 m versus 160,326 m of development and 7,856 m of exploration drilling in 2009.

The target for 2010 as well as for 2009 has not been published, and the target for 2008 was 190,434 m (including 181,204 m of development and 9,230 m of exploratory drilling respectively).

In 2007, SOCAR (if not to take into account JVs and OCs) drilled 190,376 m, including 185,234 m of development and 5,142 m of exploration drilling.