Page 16 - FSUOGM Week 34

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM

Gazprom Neft takes next step

at Novoportovskoye

RUSSIA GAZPROM Neft has embarked on the next metres of gas. Its northern section alone holds
stage of development at its flagship Novopor- 27.8mn tonnes of oil and 28.5mn cubic metres
Gazprom Neft has tovskoye oilfield in the Russian Arctic. of gas.
started recovering oil In a statement on August 21, the producer Gazprom Neft has been acquiring acreage in
from the field's northern said it had begun recovering oil from the field’s the area surrounding Novoportovskoye in recent
section. northern section, after commissioning a new years, with the hope of establishing a major hub
well measuring nearly 3,400 metres in length. for Arctic oil production. It also wants to exploit
The well includes a 1,000-metre horizontal the field’s gas by building a pipeline under the
section. Gulf of Ob to the Yamburgskoye gas field con-
Gazprom Neft plans to construct 10 well trolled by its parent company Gazprom. Yam-
pads in the area under a project worth RUB86bn burgskoye is connected with Russia’s national
($1.2bn). Novoportovskoye’s northern section is gas system.
remote from the field’s main infrastructure, and Gazprom Neft had been on track to pro-
so the company is building a new substation to duce 100mn tonnes of oil equivalent (around
supply new facilities with power. 2mn barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd))
The project will help maintain the field’s out- of hydrocarbons this year. But the coronavirus
put, according to Gazprom Neft. Production (COVID-19) pandemic and the cuts Russia and
totalled 7.7mn tonnes (155,000 barrels per day) other OPEC+ members responded with meant
last year and is expected to reach 160,000 bpd in this plan had to be adjusted.
2021, the company said. Instead, the company’s output is expected
Novoportovskoye was first discovered in to slide 5% this year from 1.95mn boepd in
1964 but for decades was considered too remote 2019, its deputy CEO for upstream operations,
and geologically complex to develop. After four Vadim Yakovlev, said in June. Gazprom Neft
years of trial operations, full-scale production has reined in its capital spending plan for 2020
finally began in 2016 after Gazprom Neft com- by 20%, to help shore up its financial position
pleted its Arctic Gates terminal to deliver the amid the downturn. However, its management
field’s oil to markets. insists that cuts will not affect work at Novo-
To contend with the field’s faulted and low portovskoye and its other main Arctic field,
permeability reservoirs, Gazprom Neft has Prirazlomnoye.
employed advanced techniques such as horizon- Gazprom Neft also announced last week it
tal and multilateral drilling as well as multi-stage had closed a deal to form a joint venture with
hydraulic fracturing. Russia’s Zarubezhneft to develop two licences in
Novoportovskoye’s C1+C2 reserves are esti- the Khanty-Mansiysk province of Western Sibe-
mated at over 250mn tonnes (183mn barrels) of ria. The pair want to combine their expertise to
oil and condensate and more than 320bn cubic develop hard-to-recover oil. ™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 34 26•August•2020