DUSHANBE, October 28, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Specialists from closed joint-stock company (CJSC) Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz have visited the Shahrinav-1P location, 36 kilometers southwest of Dushanbe, to get acquainted with derrick building and preparations for the drilling operation in the area, according to the representative office of Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz in Dushanbe.

The work on installing the drilling equipment and constructing auxiliary facility and helipad is under way.  As it had been reported earlier, the Shahrinav-1P well will be the deepest borehole in Tajikistan; the depth of this borehole will be 6,300 meters.

The general contractor is limited liability company, Orenburg Burovaya Kompaniya (Orenburg Drilling Company) and the company plans to launch the drilling operation in November.

Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz is an affiliate of Russia’s state-controlled gas company Gazprom.  Gazprom has received licenses from the Tajik government to explore four oil-and-gas reserves in Tajikistan: Rengan; Sargazon; Sariqamish; and the Western Shaambari.  The Rengan field, located in the Roudaki district, 20 kilometers from the Tajik capital, has possible gas reserves of 35 billion cubic meters and the Sargazon field, located in Khatlon province, some 150 kilometers of Dushanbe, has possible reserves of 30 billion cubic meters.  Of all the four licensed sites of Gazprom in Tajikistan, Sariqamish is estimated as the most promising.

According to expert estimates, the aggregate raw-materials resources of the oil and gas bearing areas in Tajikistan amount to about 1,000 billion tons of reference fuel.  At the same time, production work at oil and gas fields require considerable expenditure, since hydrocarbon deposits occur at depths ranging from 6.5 to 8 kilometers.