World’s Deepest Oil Well to Be Closed Due to Financial Problems

MURMANSK. April 11 (Interfax) – The Kola peninsula well, the world’s deepest borehole, will be closed, Russian Federal Property Managing Agency’s local branch director Boris Mikov said.

The exact date of closure of the Kola Superdeep Borehole (KSDB) project, which in 1991 was in the Guinness Book of World Records, has yet to be confirmed, “but the decision itself has already been made due to serious financial problems,” Mikov told journalists on Thursday.

The Pechenga District Prosecutor’s Office has already fined the company director for owing salaries and threatened criminal prosecution if that continues, he said. Currently, the well employs 20 people compared to 500 experts who had worked here during the Soviet era.

“But the main thing is that it was decided that the project is not profitable and therefore its funding should be halted,” Mikov said.

The drilling of the scientific geological well SG-3, located around ten kilometers from the town of Zapolyarny, began in May 1970 and was carried out by the Kola geologic exploration expedition of the USSR Geological Ministry.

In September 1981, the drilling at the SG-3 broke the world depth record after boring pipes with a 245 mm diameter reached the level of 8,770 meters. Previously, the open hole was 10,000 meters deep.

By early 1991 the drilling reached the level of 12,261 meters deep, having for the first time in history exposed the rocks 1.6-3 billion years old.

However, in 1992 the experimental drilling at the Kola super- deep well was halted, and over the next 16 years governmental agencies were deciding whether the well should be closed and the drilling company disbanded.

At the same time, Russian and foreign scientists estimate that the sophisticated nature of super-deep drilling makes it comparable to a space mission, and the closure of the well will cause irreparable damage to global research.

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