Page 15 - FSUOGM Week 38

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM

Gazprom, Rusgazdobycha report

first gas from joint field

RUSSIA GAZPROM and its Russian partner Rusgazdo- build two artificial islands from where deviated
bycha have reported first gas from the Semak- wells can be drilled to tap offshore reservoirs,
The Semakovskoye ovskoye field they are developing in Western according to plans filed with authorities last
field is the largest of Siberia. year. This less common method of recovery has
three that Gazprom Semakovskoye is the largest of three fields been used at Kazakhstan’s Kashagan project in
and Rusgazdobycha operated by Rusgazalyans, a 50:50 joint venture the Caspian Sea.
have agreed to develop which the two companies formed in 2017. The Rusgazalyans also intends to construct a third
jointly. deposit is estimated to hold 350bn cubic metres well cluster onshore, along with a 7.3bn cubic
(bcm) of recoverable gas. metre (bcm) per year gas treatment complex.
The partners said in a joint statement on Extracted gas will be piped to Gazprom’s oper-
September 18 that they had completed their ational Yamburgskoye field, situated around 45
first production well at Semakovskoye, and an km to the south.
industrial flow of gas was achieved. Studies will Gazprom and Rusgazdobycha have not
be undertaken to assess long-term flow rates and said when they intend to start developing their
the field’s production capacity. joint venture’s other two fields, Parusovoye and
The well was sunk in late May. It has a 2,637- North-Parusovoye. Those deposits contain a
metre length with a partially horizontal gradient. combined 100 bcm of gas.
Two more wells have been drilled but are yet to The partners have said before that the three
be brought on stream. fields together could deliver 20 bcm per year of
The development model for Semakovskoye gas by 2030.
calls for 19 production wells in total by 2023, Rusgazdobycha is reportedly controlled
with six due to be ready by the first quarter of indirectly by Arkady Rotenburg, a Russian bil-
2021. Full-scale commercial production is lionaire with close ties to the Kremlin. Gazprom
scheduled to start in 2022. is also working with the company at a new gas
Most of Semakovskoye lies in shallow waters processing and LNG production complex on the
of the Gulf of Ob and so Rusgazalyans plans to Baltic Sea, due to start up in 2023. ™

Rusgazdobycha picks Axens technology

for $13bn Baltic petchems complex

RUSSIA PRIVATE Russian firm Rusgazdobycha has six polyethylene trains with a combined output
selected France’s Axens to provide olefins pro- of 480,000 tpy and two linear alpha olefin plants
Axens will provide duction technologies for a $13bn ethane-crack- with a total capacity of 137,000 tpy.
technologies to produce ing project it is developing on the Baltic Sea. Construction work is on schedule, Rusgazdo-
1-butane and 1-hexene. Under a contract, Axens will license out its bycha reported on September 15. The project’s
proprietary AlphaButol technology to produce first phase is due to start up in the fourth quarter
high-purity 1-butane by ethylene dimeriza- of 2023, and its second phase a year after that. It
tion, and its AlphaHexol technology to produce will receive ethane feedstock from an adjacent
high-purity 1-hexene. gas processing complex, which Rusgazdobycha
The 1-butane will be produced at two 60,000 is building in partnership with Gazprom. That
tonne-per-year units, and the 1-hexene at one complex will also produce LNG for export.
50,000 tpy unit. These products will be used A number of Russian oil and gas firms are
as comonomers to produce various grades of moving into petrochemicals to add value to
polyethylene, including the low-density and their production. The state has introduced var-
high-density kind. ious measures to support this drive, including a
Axens did not say how much the contract was reverse excise duty – an effective subsidy – on
worth or disclose a timeframe for its work. domestic ethane use.
Rusgazdobycha’s Baltic Chemical Complex in Earlier this month Russia’s Lukoil also picked
the port of Ust-Luga is expected to be the biggest US firm Lummus to supply technology for a
ethylene integration project in the world. It will 500,000 tpy polypropylene unit it wants to erect
comprise two 1.4mn tpy ethylene cracking sites, at the Kstovo refinery in Nizhny Novgorod. ™

Week 38 23•September•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15