(Tehran Times) – Iran earned some US $300 million from drilling 30 oil wells in Turkmenistan waters in the Caspian Sea during the past 5 years, Iran’s North Drilling Company (NDC, حفّاری شمال) managing director said.

Iran-Alborz rig
The semi-submersible drilling rig can operate at water depths up to 1,030 meters and drill down to 6,000 meters under the seabed. The rig weighs 14,000 tons without its attachments and will facilitate exploration in deep waters in southern part of the Caspian Sea.

The country has prepared comprehensive plans to carry out drilling operations and export technical and engineering services to different countries, the NDC head Hedayatollah Khademi (هدایت الله خادمی) told the Pana news agency.

Iran plans to increase the number of its drilling rigs operating onshore and offshore oilfields by 36 units to reach 134 units by March 2014, the National Iranian Oil Company’s (NIOC) managing director said.

Ahmad Qalebani (احمد قالبانی) told the Shana news agency that the country’s daily oil and gas outputs should amount to five million barrels and 1.47 billion m³ by 2015.

Some 2,500 oil and gas wells should be drilled and commissioned during Iran’s fifth five-year economic development plan (2010-15).

The North Drilling Company is specialized in the contracting, design, construction, management and leasing of oil and gas platforms in the Caspian Sea, to global customers. The company was privatized in June 2009. As of February 2010, Mehr Eghtesad, a quasi-governmental investment company, owned 20% of its shares on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

In 2009 SADRA (Iran Marine Industrial Company) launched a domestically-built semi-floatable drilling rig for the Caspian Sea. The semi-submersible rig called Iran-Alborz is the largest in the Middle East. The semi-floatable platform is able to operate at water depths up to 1,030 metres and can drill down to 6,000 metres under the seabed. Iran-Alborz is operated by Iran North Drilling Co.

North Drilling Company and China Petroleum Technology Development Corporation (CPTDC) have signed a $143 million contract to set up a drilling rig in the Persian Gulf by 2011.