The National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) has added two heavy onshore drilling rigs to its drilling fleet, a senior official at the NIDC said.
Fat'h 94 and 95 electronic drilling rigs are being installed in the site, in the southern oil-rich region, and field studies are currently being conducted on the rigs.
The two rigs will be employed later in one of the joint oilfields, Abdol-Ali Motahari, drilling rigs' reconstruction and renovation manager at NIDC was quoted by Shana news agency as saying. The rigs, each with a capacity of 2,000 horsepower, are equipped with five generators, three fluid pumps, top drives, and advanced electric, hydraulic and mechanical systems.
With the aim to accelerate drilling projects, the NIDC has planned to add five drilling rigs to its fleet in the current Iranian calendar year (began March 21) to reach a total of 75 rigs, including 72 onshore and three offshore rigs.
Domestic experts will conduct overhaul operations on five drilling rigs this year, Motahari said, adding that over the past years all NITC's mechanical rigs -called Ghadr- and semi mechanical rigs -called Nasr- were converted into advanced electronic rigs through overhaul operations.
NIDC fleet comprises light, heavy, and ultra heavy drilling rigs. Light rigs are utilized for workover operations, while heavy and ultra heavy rigs are employed in exploration, development and delineation wells.
The NIDC was established in 1980 and so far has drilled a total of 3,848 oil and gas wells in an estimated area of 8.2 million meters. It drilled close to 382,700 meters of offshore and onshore oil and gas wells in the last Iranian calendar year. Last year's drilling operations showed a 43,000 meter year-on-year increase, or approximately 9 percent.
Drilling of 161 wells was completed last year, including 86 development-delineation wells and one exploratory well, and 74 well workovers. Drilling at 17 wells was completed nearly one year ahead of schedule. Drilling operations are underway in 10 provinces and stretch from Sarakhs in Khorasan Razavi Province in northeast to central and southern regions including the South Pars gas field.
