The state joint stock company Chornomornaftohaz has begun to prospect the North Kazantip gas deposit in the southern Azov Sea, according to press reports from Kiev.
Production could start as early as 2002, said the company's Mykola Ilnytskyy. The work will allow the company to fully satisfy Crimea's gas needs and ship the surplus to southern Ukraine, he said.
Chornomornaftohaz specialists said as many as 13 gas and condensate and dry gas deposits with a combined 75 bcm of prospected resources are known on the shelf, seven in the Black Sea and six in the Azov Sea. Three new gas deposits have been found on the southern Azov Sea shelf in the last 2 two years.
It is now quite clear that the Ukrainian economic zone of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov has significant petroleum potential, acclaims the internet newsletter of the nonprofit journal Petroleum Geology, Great Falls, Va.
Gas reservoir data
Petroleum Geology, quoting a recent Ukrainian geologic publication by Yevdoshuk and others, attributed initial resources of 343.8 million tons of oil equivalent to the Azov Sea. It attributed 1.4 tcf of gas in place to North Kazantip.
North Kazantip is one of four structures in the Indolo-Kuban downwarp that have been prepared for further drilling. Three wells have been drilled on the structure, two of which disclosed three gas and condensate accumulations in Oligocene-Miocene Upper Maykop.
Well 1 tested 3 MMcfd of gas at 1,026-1,112 m, and Well 2, drilled to 1,400 m, revealed two additional productive horizons, Petroleum Geology said.
Another well drilled in 1999 to 2,600 m penetrated Neogene and Upper and Middle Maykop rocks where geophysical logging indicated the presence of the three upper horizons and three prospective horizons associated with the stratigraphic pinchout of Maykop beds.
The Oligocene-Lower Miocene Maykop sediments consist of clays with members of sandy siltstone and sandstone. The reservoirs have porosity of 19-20% and permeability of 9 to 3,450 md.
Also being prepared for drilling is Bezymyan gas field on the northwest flank of the Kiliy-Zmein high on the Black Sea northwestern shelf. Gas resources on the Bezymyan structure are assessed at 102 bcf in 37-39 m of water.
Exploratory drilling began in 1997 with three wells bottomed at 1,185 m, 2,258 m, and 2,055 m. Lower Paleocene limestones flowed at rates of 98,000, 79,000, and 96,000 cu m/day, respectively, of 95% methane. Middle Eocene flowed 146,000 and 111,000 cu m/day of 97% methane from wells 1 and 2, respectively.
