OREANDA-NEWS. May 05, 2010. This March the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) lowered drilling by 3.6% against March of the year.

This year’s drilling operations are still equivalent only to 27.02% 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) it drilled 10,847 m in April versus 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 indicator) of 2009.

Drilling for 2010 still totals 45,448 m against 168,182 m for 2009 and 202,954 m for 2008.

This April development drilling made up 10,304 m and exploration drilling 543 m (including 170 m of wild-cat drilling) versus 10,963 m (285 m) in March. The best indicator of exploration drilling in 2009 was registered in October (2,699 m).

This year development drilling has totaled 43,810 m, exploration drilling 1,638 m and wildcat drilling 400 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 was not 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.