Gazpromneft-Zapolyarye has completed agreements allowing it to start developing Cretaceous Achimov strata in Yamburgskoye oil and gas condensate field and oil-rim deposits in parent Gazprom’s Pestsovoye and En-Yakhinskoye gas fields in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of Russia.
The company reported commercial flows in retests of two exploratory wells at Yamburg field and plans to drill horizontal wells for multistage hydraulic fracturing this year. Results will determine terms and speed of development.
Gazprom Neft said it envisions the start of production from Yamburg’s Achimov deposits in 2024. It hopes technology developed during the project can be applied to Achimov reservoirs elsewhere in Western Siberia.
The Achimov chalk overlies the Upper Jurassic Bazhenov group, which occurs in Western Siberia at depths of 2-4 km. Gazprom-Neft said the Achimov strata occur throughout central part of the West Siberian basin, “with the most important being found in the Nadymsky and Purovsky Districts of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Ikrug.”
The company plans to start development of oil-rim deposits at Petsovoye and En-Yakhinskoye at the end of 2021, targeting production rates “on the order of 2 million tonnes/year of oil-equivalent (OGJ Online, Oct. 25, 2006).”
The work will occur under “risk-based operator contracts” allowing Gazprom Neft to conduct activities under Gazprom subsidiaries’ license on identical terms.
Gasprom Neft said it “will be investing its own resources in geological prospecting activities and infrastructure construction and bearing all geological and operational risks.”
The new structure creates a legal basis for project and shareholder financing of the project, it said, adding long-term risk-based operatorship agreements might accommodate its development of oil-bearing strata in Zapadno-Tarkosalinskoye, Chayandinskoye, Urengoy, and Orenburg fields and hydrocarbon reserves in fields owned by Gazprom in northern Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Gazprom Neft First Deputy Chief Executive Officer Vadim Yakovlev said about half of the company’s production will occur in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug “as soon as 2020.”
