Deepest subsea exploration well drilled at Azerbaijan’s Umid field

Drilling has been completed at the U-01A exploration well at the Umid gas-condensate field in Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian Sea, with the well reaching a depth of 6,972 metres, operating company UBOC said.

The company said it was the deepest subsea exploration well drilled in the Caspian basin using a jack-up rig and also the deepest well at the Umid field itself.

UBOC said drilling began in the fourth quarter of 2025 from the Neptune jack-up rig and was completed ahead of schedule and in line with high safety standards.

The drilling results will be announced later.

The U-01A well was drilled as part of the second phase of development of the Umid field, which was discovered more than 15 years ago in Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian. The field lies about 75 km south of Baku and is estimated to hold 130 billion cubic metres of gas and 20 million tonnes of condensate.

More than 12 billion cubic metres of gas have already been produced from the field. The second phase of the Umid project envisages an annual output of 3 billion cubic metres of gas, to be transported to the Dashgil onshore terminal and then to the Sangachal terminal using SOCAR infrastructure.

UBOC is owned by SOCAR with 80% and Nobel Upstream with 20%.