Mud volcano Lock-Batan

Mud volcano Lock-Batan is situated 15km south-west off Baku in close vicinity to Caspian coastal line and within the same name oil field area. Its orographic appearance looks like dome-shaped elevation with two knolls at the top and the main crater field between them, first appeared while its third recorded eruption in 1987. The crater appears like subsidence caldera. Absolute height of mud volcano amounts to 98 m whereas its relative height above its basement amounts to 130 m.

Lock-Batan mud volcano is the most active mud volcano in Azerbaijan, “a world record holder” according to the number of eruptions.

Starting from 1829 it has been erupted 22 times.  The last one occurred in October, 2001. All its eruptions were accompanied by huge amount of mud breccias outburst to the surface, flared up gases, column of fire and mud flows extended up to 200-250 m long down the slope. Frozen mud breccias sheet occupies about 425 he which thickness encountered in a well measures around 150m. Some historical events of the oil field development in Azerbaijan are associated Lock-Batan mud volcano. For a long period of time areas affected by mud volcanoes were considered to be unpromising to discover here commercial hydrocarbon deposits. Mud volcanism phenomenon was believed as a factor contributing to destroy hydrocarbon deposits. However, some geoscientists are often entertained opposite point of views. There were some others who urge to drill exploration wells over mud volcanoes. Discussion concerning this issue continued for many years came to an end in 1933. This year an exploration well spudded within Lock-Batan mud colcano has been successfully competed by a huge oil-gasher with output capacity measured 20 th tons of oil/day. So, it has been proven that mud volcano affected area does not destroy oil field. Thus, a genetic link between mud volcanoes and oil deposits has been pioneered first time in former Soviet Union and it was converged into conclusion to search for frontier hydrocarbon deposits within mud volcano vicinity. Since Lock-Batan oil field has been put on stream over 27 M ton of oil and over 1 B cub m of natural gases were produced. Nevertheless, famous pioneer well No.45 is still in operation and continues to produce hydrocarbons from this oil deposit.