Volume 3, issue #2 - 22-01-1998

Dec. 9, 1997 Abbot Group, the UK-based oil services company, and Norwegian engineering giant Aker Maritime have individually announced Caspian oil contracts worth a total of $ 58 mm.
The awards come shortly after the Azerbaijan International Operating Company's (AIOC) symbolic first oil from the Azeri Chirag-1 platform which signalled the first fruits from the international consortium-s $ 8 bn investment in the region.
Abbot's long-established subsidiary, KCA Drilling, has secured a 3 year contract with the BP-led AIOC for the design, construction supervision and operation of the platform drilling facilities under phase one of the consortium's development of the Chirag and Guneshli fields offshore Azerbaijan.
The two-platform contract is valued at $ 32 mm for the first platform - where work is to begin immediately - with a further $ 30 mm for work on the second platform which should begin in 9 months time, an Abbot spokesman said. He added that the contract may be renewed after the initial period for up to 15 years.
The two platforms each have 48 well slots, and will utilise a main drilling rig plus a secondary lightweight completion rig to improve the drilling sequence/production schedule, an Abbot statement said.
The engineering and construction phase of the rigs will take around two years, with offshore drilling operations expected to begin early in 2000.
Lukoil intends to operate the jack-up in its own oil and gas fields in the northern Caspian, as well as offering the rig to other companies operating in the Caspian basin.
Aker Maritime's Finnish arm, Aker Rauma Offshore, has signed a deal with a subsidiary of Lukoil to upgrade the jack-up rig Khazoil 1 (ex Marawah) for deeper water operations.
The rig was knocked-down and transported in sections through the Volga- Balt river channel to the Caspian, in the summer of this year. The reassembly of the jack-up is scheduled to take place at a shipyard in Astrakhan, under contract to Aker Rauma.
Previously, the company hasdelivered the semi-submersible Dada Gorgud (ex Kaspmorneft) in 1978 and the pipe-laying barge Israfil Guzeinov in 1988, along the same Volga-Balt route.