Drilling vessel gets new gig in Caspian Sea

Caspian Sunrise, an oil and gas company with a focus on Kazakhstan, has won a new deal for the Caspian Explorer drilling vessel, enabling it to carry out work in the Caspian Sea. 

Caspian Sunrise disclosed on Monday, 20 February 2023, that the terms of the charter agreement for 2024 were agreed with the formal signing scheduled for late March 2023.

Furthermore, the well is scheduled to be drilled in the summer of 2024 and is to be drilled to a planned depth of 2,500 meters. The drilling work will be undertaken for the Istay Operating Company LLP (IOC), a Kazakh registered explorer, in which Italy’s Eni is a leading participant. According to Caspian Sunrise, the work is expected to take approximately two months. 

This comes after the firm announced in mid-January 2023 that the Caspian Explorer drilling vessel had won a tender to drill a well in the Caspian Sea, with the formal contract expected to be signed by the end of February 2023. The charter rate was anticipated to be in excess of $150,000 per day with all mobilisation and demobilisation costs to be borne by IOC.

Clive Carver, Chairman of Caspian Sunrise, remarked: “That a major international oil company considers chartering the Caspian Explorer to be the most technically and commercially advantageous option for the development of their field in the Caspian Sea reinforces the board’s view that the Caspian Explorer will be a major contributor to the group.”

Caspian Explorer is a drilling vessel capable of drilling exploration wells to depths of up to 6,000 meters in extremely shallow water in the northern Caspian Sea where traditional deepwater rigs cannot be used. It can accommodate around 100 people.

Assembled in the Ersay shipyard in Kazakhstan between 2010 and 2011, the Caspian Explorer was conceived by a consortium of leading Korean companies, including KNOC, Samsung and Daewoo Shipbuilding.