The National Iranian Drilling Company has conducted 209 logging operations on the country's onshore and offshore hydrocarbon reservoirs since the beginning of the current fiscal that started on March 21, an NIDC senior official said.
"The operations include 75 well loggings and 85 mud loggings, while 49 projects involved well development," Ali Daqayeqi, NIDC's director of Special Services Department, was also quoted as saying by the National Iranian Oil Company's portal on Wednesday.
Noting that the number indicates a considerable hike compared with that of the past year's corresponding period, Daqayeqi said his department currently has 50 mud logging units and is capable of scaling its activities to larger numbers.
Mud logging, in its conventional implementation, involves the rig-site monitoring and assessment of information that comes to the surface while drilling, with the exclusion of data from downhole sensors.
Such operations determine positions of hydrocarbon reserves with respect to depth, identifying downhole lithology, monitoring natural gas entering the drilling mud stream and drawing well logs for use by the oil company geologist.
Referring to the increasing trend of NIDC's special services in the past couples of years, Daqayeqi said that in the last fiscal year [March 2107-18], some 1,437 operations, including 392 well loggings, 569 mud loggings and 476 well development projects were carried out.
"The operations generated an overall 2.15 trillion rials ($51.2 million) of revenue during the one-year period, indicating a 29% increase year-on-year," he said.
The official added that boosting revenues, downscaling expenses and employing domestic expertise and labor are high on the company's agenda.
Scope of Activities
Daqayeqi noted that NIDC is currently on several major missions for National Iranian South Oil Company, Iranian Offshore Oil Company, Petroleum Engineering and Development Company, Arvandan Oil & Gas Company, Iranian Central Oilfields Company and NIOC's Exploration Directorate.
State-owned NIDC—a subsidiary of NIOC—is in charge of all offshore and onshore drilling activities. The company’s services include well logging, cementing and acidizing, drill stem test, well testing, training, development and general services.
It engages in the exploration, development and delineation drilling of oil and gas wells, especially in the joint oilfields, namely South Azadegan, 80 kilometers west of Ahvaz in Khuzestan along the Iraq border, Azar in Ilam Province as well as South Pars, the world's largest gas field shared between Iran and Qatar in the Persian Gulf.
Daqayeqi concluded that the department has conducted eight perforation projects for South Pars' Phase 14 within 23 operations and is set to carry out six more for the same phase by the next month.
