1. Bouygues Offshore earned the contract for the jackets and piles for new platforms to be installed in Azeri field 88 miles (120 km) southeast of Baku, Azerbaijan. Under the nearly final US $151 million contract, the company will build and load two jackets and their piles after construction at SPS, a construction yard in Baku. The contract is with Azerbaijan International Operating Co.
2. Parker Drilling Co.'s Rig 216 has arrived at Karachaganak field, northern Kazakhstan, to start a 3-year contract for Karachaganak Petroleum Operating BV.
3. ABB landed contracts for surface wellheads and trees and production and drilling services for Chevron-operated Tengiz field in Kazakhstan. The US $30 million contract is good for 5 years.
4. The Caspian Sea is turning into a production bonanza, if not a marketing paradise, and Kazakhstan is promoting the Aral Sea as the second largest hydrocarbon province in the country. The Aral Sea Basin has known resources of more than 360 million bbl of oil and more than 670 MMcf of gas, but exploration has been overshadowed by the Caspian Sea. Japan National Oil Corp. has a license to explore more than 3,860 sq miles (10,000 sq km) in the basin, and it has conducted a 2,500-mile (4,026-km) 2-D seismic survey.
5. A report on Turkmen television said the Turkmennebit state oil company drilled a new well in Nebitlije field in western Turkmenistan. The 11,800-ft (3,600-m) production zone is producing at a rate of 953 b/d.
6. The shelf of the Pechora Sea in Arctic Russia will see the development of the Prirazlomnyy oil field under a consortium composed of Gazprom (50%), Rosshelf (25%) and Rosneft (25%). The field, Gazprom's largest, holds an estimated 558 million bbl of oil. Construction has started in Severodvinsk on an ice-proof drilling and production platform for the project, which includes 48 wells with a planned production of 160,000 b/d, starting in 2004.
7. China National Offshore Oil Co. Ltd. is producing from the first of three platforms on its Suizhong 36-1 (Phase II-2) project in southern Liaodong Bay, north of Bohai Bay, according to Ogilvie's E&P Daily. The organization will bring production up to about 9,000 b/d.
8. Phillips Petroleum Co. and China National Offshore Oil Co. Ltd. have completed primary engineering on China's largest offshore oil field, Penglai 19-3, in southern Bohai Bay, about 50 miles (80 km) from Shandong Province. The field is in about 65 ft (20 m) of water. It holds some 4.4 billion bbl of oil, according to Asiainfo Daily China News. The partners expect to complete the first phase by the end of 2002 and put 24 wells to work producing 18 million bbl of oil a year.
9. Petrochina claims a major discovery with its Pen-5 well in the Mosuowan area of the central part of the Junggar Basin in northwestern Xinjiang province. The well tested at 630 b/d of oil and 10.6 MMcf/d of gas. Reserves could exceed 146 million boe.
10. An appraisal well, the Kela-205, gave PetroChina its highest daily test rate at 117 MMcf/d of gas. The well is part of the Kela-2 field, which has proven reserves of 8.8 Tcf of gas. It is the key field in the development of China's proposed West-to-East pipeline.
11. Malaysia's Petronas Carigali (Pakistan) Ltd. discovered its first gas in Pakistan at the Rehmat-1 well in the Mubarak Block in Sindh province. The well tested at a maximum rate of 25.6 MMcf/d.
12. India gathered 16 bids for exploration and production licenses on six coalbed methane blocks in the country's first round of coalbed methane licensing. Bidders were state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and Indian Oil Corp.; private Indian companies Reliance Industries Ltd., Essar Oil Ltd. and Great Eastern Energy Corp. Ltd.; and US-based Coal Gas Mart LLC. Blocks are in east Raniganj in West Bengal province, Bokaro and north Karanpura in Jharkhand province, eastern Sohagpur and western Sohagpur in Madhya Pradesh province, and north Barmer in Rajasthan province.