495 
and for 10 years after the repayment has been completed. The amount 
of $22.5 million (in yen) is a regular loan for the purchase of Japanese 
exploration equipment and supplies and the remaining $30 million 
is in yen credit for Japanese consumer goods to be sold in Russia 
by the Russians to raise money for exploration.** 
Gulf Oil Corporation has agreed in principle to acquire a 3-percent 
participation in the Japanese consortium for an initial payment of 
$211,000. Gulf is in the process of negotiating with Japanese interests 
on its role in the program, although it is anticipated that one of 
Gulf’s two advanced seismic vessels may be used in the search.*® 
The entire agreement had been held up by Soviet insistence that 
only Russians be permitted aboard any vessel used for the work. 
The compromise will permit five to seven non-Soviet citizens on the 
survey ship as consultants when necessary. The exploration crew will 
be Russian.© 
The Soviets plan to make use of artificial islands rather than floating 
platforms for exploratory drilling off the northern coast of Sakhalin. 
The area is a difficult one in which to drill because of ice and 
earthquakes. The type of structure to be used consists of a double- 
walled steel platform that is towed to the site and then protected 
by a concrete jacket. A dozen wells can be drilled from each unit.® 
SOVIET OFFSHORE EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY 
Russia’s first domestically built mobile rig that is capable of working 
in deep water was recently towed into the Caspian Sea to begin 
work on a wildcat well south of the Apsheron Peninsula. The new 
fourlegged jack-up unit, named the Baky (Baku) is the first of a 
proposed series of 10 Kaspii-class mobile rigs scheduled for completion 
by 1980. The Baky was built at Astrakhan at the northern end of 
the Caspian Sea. It is designed to drill to 6,000 meters in 60 meters 
of water. Construction is underway at Astrakhan’s Red Barricades 
Shipyard on the second and third Kaspii-class rigs but the overall 
program as announced in 1970 is far behind schedule. One of these 
rigs will be assigned to the Caspian Sea and the other to the Black 
Sea, but neither is expected to begin work before late 1976 or 1977. 
The Baky required 8 months of fitting out and operational testing 
after being moved from Astrakhan to Baku in the fall of 1974. 
The Baky is similar in design to the Dutch-built, jackup Chazar 
which was constructed in Rotterdam in 1967, towed to the Caspian 
in sections, and activated in 1968. The Chazar can drill to 6,300 
meters in 60 meters of water. The Soviets claim, however, that the 
Baky has improved drilling equipment (produced by the Ural Heavy 
Equipment Plant at Sverdlovsk), slightly longer legs, better pumps, 
a more-advanced electric power plant, and a wider helicopter landing 
58 Japan, Russia Finally Agree on Sakhalin Exploration Terms. The Oil Gas Journal, November 3, 
1975, p. 43. 
59 Ibid. 
69 Ibid. 
1 Russia Will Use Artificial Islands, Offshore, May 1975, p. 283. 
62 Baky, Russia’s First Deepwater Unit, Starts to Work. Offshore, October 1975, p. 159. 
