Record deep oil well drilled in Belarus

A record deep oil well has been drilled in Belarus, the press service of the industrial group Belorusneft told BelTA.

Appraisal well No. 1 Predrechitskaya is now 5,625m deep. The previous “deep” record was 5,553m. It was set at well No. 9001 Geologicheskaya on 24 August 2008.

The new oil well depth record is an absolute one for the Belarusian oil industry but not final. The drilling effort continues. The final depth is supposed to reach 6,680m. The well is expected to be the deepest one not only in Belarus but the Commonwealth of Independent States, too. There are similar wells in Russia, which are as long as the Belarusian one is deep, but the Russian ones are horizontal. Appraisal well No. 1 Predrechitskaya is a deviating hole, with the boresight angle of 470m.

The well was drilled for the sake of finding hydrocarbons in intersalt structures and for the sake of assessing oil and gas content in the subsalt and Upper Proterozoic complexes within the confines of the Predrechitskaya intersalt trap. The drilling team uses a Bentec drill rig that can drill as deep as 7,000m below the surface.

The Belarusian industrial group Belorusneft was founded in 1966. The company specializes in the surveying, prospecting and development of oil fields, well drilling, oil and associated petroleum gas extraction in Belarus and a number of other countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Ecuador.