Bloomberg: Drill-Rig Shortage May Delay Total’s Caspian Natural-Gas Project

Total SA needs drilling rigs by 2017 to meet its development targets at the Caspian Sea natural-gas field of Absheron, the company’s regional manager said.

Europe’s third-biggest energy company had to stop drilling at the field 100 kilometers (60 miles) off Azerbaijan in September last year because of a shortage of drill rigs amid increasing Caspian exploration.

“It’s a bit of constraint,” Christian Giudicelli, general manager of Total E&P Azerbaijan, said today in Baku, the capital. “The challenge here is that we cannot drill, therefore there is some uncertainty.”

The European Union is looking to Absheron, Shah Deniz and other deposits in the Caspian to ease dependence on Russian supplies, which meet a quarter of European demand. Absheron, discovered in 2011, may contain 300 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million metric tons of condensate, or light oil, according to State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan, or Socar.  MORE