Caspian Drilling Company (CDC) was established on September 5, 1996 between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (55%) and Santa Fe (45%) on the basis of a world-famous USSR Offshore Exploration Drilling Company (OEDC) to perform drilling operations in the Caspian region and follow up an execution of Product Sharing Agreement in Azerbaijani Sector of Caspian Sea. The National Leader of Azerbaijan – Heydar Aliyev participated in opening ceremonies of both CDC semisubmersible rigs – Dada Gorgud (24.08.1996) and Istiglal (02.09.1998) as the part of Oil Strategy of Azerbaijan Republic.

On June 30, 2009 45% of USA's Santa Fe Inc. has been acquired by CDC and now State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic owns 92,44% of CDC.

Registered as an Azerbaijani Company, CDC, at the same time, operates in compliance with International standards utilizing multinational personnel, and has been verifying forecasts of seismic exploration operations with drilling data as well as drilling exploitation wells from subsea templates.

On April 24 2011 Caspian Drilling Company Ltd. successfully attained ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Certification System from DNV (Det Norske Veritas) at their initial attempt for the Management of Off-Shore Drilling Operations including Engineering, Maintenance, Equipment and Personnel.

The Company has performed the drilling operations in 16 PSAs executed for the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. As a result of drilling operations Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli and Shah Daniz fields were discovered.

CDC clients: AIOC; BP Shakh Deniz; BP Inam ; Agip Azerbaijan ; Chevron Azerbaijan ; EAOC ; NAOC; CIPCO. Over the period of Company’s operations, 114 wells (vertical, deviated and horizontal) were drilled from subsea template pre-drilling and subsea Xmas tree by Istiglal and Dada Gorgud drilling rigs on 14 geological structures, named Garabag, Ashrafi, Dan Ulduzu, Azeri, Chirag, Gunashli, Shah Daniz, Nakhchivan, Absheron, Inam, Kurdashi and Araz Daniz fields.

The wells drilled for AIOC were awarded a Hi-Plus category.