Uchenna Izundu
International Editor
LONDON, Apr. 23 -- Imperial Energy has assured Russian environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor that it will resolve all alleged violations of its pipeline construction and booking of its reserves after Rosprirodnadzor deputy head Oleg Mitvol last week threatened to revoke the company's licenses in western Siberia.
Analysts warned that Mitvol, who fought against Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Sakhalin project, had increased Imperial Energy's political and commercial risks.
Imperial Chairman Peter Levine on Apr. 20 held a meeting in Moscow with Mitvol and the Governor of the Tomsk region Victor Kress to discuss problems that Mitvol had raised. Levine described the meeting as "constructive."
Imperial Energy has just completed laying two pipelines totaling 208 km in the Tomsk region in western Siberia to deliver its planned production target of 6,000 b/d of oil from Snezhnoye and Maiskoye fields by late summer. Mitvol alleged that the company has breached environmental standards in building the pipeline, failed to comply with its license obligations, and overbooked its oil reserves in Siberia.
At a news conference last week Mitvol said: "[Imperial Energy] is not interested in geological exploration, and drilling volumes are ridiculously small."
Imperial claims it has all necessary permits and approvals for the construction and location of the pipelines, and denies any fault. The company is still seeking clarification from the Ministry of Natural Resources about the nature of the violations.
"Representatives of the company...assured that the company was prepared to remedy all violations, noting that the pipeline construction within the fire protection zone had been performed at the contractors' fault, and the company was not informed about that. Representatives of the company also advised that they would provide all reserve data for inclusion in the state reserve records in relation to all license areas for which data were not provided previously," Imperial added.
Imperial's reserves were assessed by independent auditor DeGolyer and MacNaughton. Its probable reserves increased to 803 million bbl in March 2007 across 15 fields from 230 million bbl in 2005 for 5 fields. Nathan Piper, oil analyst at Bridgewell Securities, told OGJ that Russia uses different classification standards for its reserves, compared with the international community, and that is causing problems for Imperial.
The 49 km Snezhnaya-Zavyalovo pipeline will deliver oil from Imperial's Blocks 74 and 77. The second pipeline, Maiskaya-Festivalnaya-Luginetskoye, is 159 km long and extends from Imperial's Maiskaya field on Block 70 through Festivalnaya field on Block 69 to the Transneft tie-in at Luginetskoye. This pipeline will bring oil from Imperial's Blocks 69, 70, 85, and 86.
Imperial is constructing two custody transfer stations at the designated Transneft tie-in points at Zavyalova and Luganetskoye in the Tomsk region.
Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected]