The state-owned National Iranian Drilling Company carried out 1,916 operations for domestic firms, including a wide range of oil-related services in the first quarter of the current Iranian fiscal (started March 21), the deputy managing director said.
"NIDC’s department of drilling services, well stimulation and cementing services as well as special services department undertook most of the operations," Alireza Laiji said, Shana, the Oil Ministry’s official news agency, reported.
NIDC provides more than 90% of drilling services needed by oil companies in the country.
Well stimulation and cementing departments carried out 1,032 operations in three months, including injection studies, cementing as well as special and extensive acidizing.
The department of drilling services also accounts for 519 operations, which encompass pipe laying, well testing, air drilling and underbalanced drilling, among other services.
In the same period, 365 well logging operations were undertaken by the special services department, he said.
Data show the NIDC has carried out 43 more well logging operations compared with the corresponding period last year. In addition, air drilling operations rise to 1,016 meters.
Air drilling is an underbalanced drilling technique in which gases, usually compressed air or nitrogen, are used to cool the drill bit and lift the cuttings of a wellbore in place of conventionally used liquids.
Laiji said these services are normally provided simultaneous to drilling operations. NIDC was founded in 1979 and operates as a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company.
