BAKU, March 11 (Reuters) - Azerbaijan state energy companySOCAR plans to resume drilling at the Umid gas deposit in theCaspian Sea this week, SOCAR's first vice-president said.
SOCAR had halted drilling at Umid in October and issued atender for the joint exploration of Umid and Babek, two largegas deposits in the Caspian Sea, with total preliminary reservesof around 600 billion cubic metres (bcm).
"Drilling will be conducted along with a tender procedures,"Khoshbakht Yusifzade told reporters, adding that drillingexpenses will be taken into in the contract.
He did not specify when the tender is expected to becompleted.
SOCAR said in 2010 it had found at least 200 bcm of gas atthe Umid field in the Caspian Sea, describing it as the largestdiscovery since the country's largest field, the Shah Denizdeposit ,that was operated by a consortium of companies led byBP and was estimated to contain 1.2 trillion cubic metresof gas.
The company faced technical problems in the productionprocess last year and decided to find a foreign partner forjoint exploration of the deposit.
An average daily production at Umid had fallen to 630,000cubic metres in 2014 from 638,000 cubic metres in 2013 and 1.5million cubic metres in 2012.
Babek has estimated reserves of 400 bcm of gas and 80million tonnes of condensate.
Azerbaijan's total gas reserves are estimated at 3-5trillion cubic metres. The ex-Soviet republic is being courtedby the West for its energy reserves in the Caspian Sea as Europesees Azeri gas as an alternative to its reliance on Russia. (Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; Writing by Margarita Antidze;Editing by Louise Heavens)
BP (BP.)