Page 4 - FSUOGM Week 28 2019

FSUOGM COMMENTARY FSUOGM
Russia targets deeper
gas plays
Russian majors are having to dig deeper for their gas in Western Siberia
RUSSIA
WHAT:
Novatek and Gazprom Neft have con rmed development prospects at Achimov deposits in Western Siberia.
WHY:
Shallower gas plays in Western Siberia are becoming mature.
WHAT NEXT:
Russia’s low-cost production gives developers room to target more challenging reserves.
RUSSIA is having to develop increasingly chal- lenging plays to keep gas production on an upward trend as elds that are easier to exploit reach maturity.
As we discussed in FSU OGM Week 13, state- owned Gazprom plans to exploit a number of remote elds on the Yamal Peninsula to help bump up production over the coming decades. But the company is also seeking to develop com- plex projects in more established areas further south.
One such project is the Achimov formation, a deep horizon of oil and gas that spans across much of the Western Siberian Basin. e Achi- mov layer is challenging to develop, being char- acterised by thin sandstone reservoirs with low permeability, as well as abnormally high pres- sure. Despite more than 200 Western Siberian elds containing Achimov resources, commer- cial exploitation has so far been con ned to a handful of sites.
Achimov gas
Gazprom’s oil arm Gazprom Ne , in partner- ship with private producer Novatek, completed a rst well this month targeting Achimov struc- tures at Western Siberia’s giant Urengoiskoye eld.
Urengoiskoye is Russia’s largest gas eld,
covering more than 12,000 square km, and has been divided up among the country’s leading oil and gas producers. Production rst began in the 1960s and has focused largely on the eld’s proli c Cenomanian and Valanginian reservoirs, located at depths of 1,100-1,700 and 1,700-3,200 metres. But with these reser- voirs now reaching maturity, operators see the Achimov layer, located more than 4,000 metres below the ground, as the next logical step for development.
In a statement on July 12, Novatek said that its 50:50 Arcticgaz joint venture (JV) with Gazprom Ne had nished work on a 5,624-metre borehole at Urengoiskoye with a 1,500-metre horizontal portion. e well test- owed at a rate of more than 1mn cubic metres of gas and 500 tonnes of condensate per day, Novatek said, con rming the “signi - cant prospects” for developing Urengoiskoye’s Achimov reserves.
Gazprom is already exploiting Achimov reservoirs at other sections of Urengoiskoye. It teamed up in 2003 with Germany’s Wintershall to develop the Achimov block 1A, achieving rst commercial output eight years later. Produc- tion is slated to reach a rate of more than 9.6bn cubic metres per year of natural gas in the 2020s, according to Gazprom.
P4
w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 28 17•July•2019