Sobolevskoye oil field to produce by mid-2008

Volga Gas PLC, which recently acquired the Urozhainoye-2 license in Russia, plans to bring the license area's Sobolevskoye oil field on stream by first-half 2008.

Sept. 17, 2007

2 min read

Uchenna Izundu
International Editor

LONDON, Sept. 17 -- Volga Gas PLC, which recently acquired the Urozhainoye-2 license in Russia, plans to bring the license area's Sobolevskoye oil field on stream by first-half 2008. It also will shoot seismic to identify potential structures for drilling over the remainder of the license.

Sobolevskoye has C1 reserves (Russia's "proved" designation) of 0.8 million bbl of oil, according to Russian standards.

In an auction Volga bid $1.7 million for the license, which spans 354 sq km. The acreage is 15 km north of the company's Russian Karpensiy license in the northwest area of the Caspian Petroleum Province. It is near 30 gas, condensate, and oil fields, including Preobrazhanskoye, Lyubimovskoye, and Gorchakovskoye.

One well was drilled on Urozhainoye-2 in 1990. "There are no C2, C3 [degrees of probable, possible] reserves, as no seismic was previously acquired across the license area, but D1 recoverable resources of 49 million boe were estimated," Volga said. It plans to publish SPE standard reserves when it completes exploration.

Volga said it believes the nearby Stepnovsky and Kalininsky fields are analogous with the Urozhainoye-2 license. These assets, near existing transportation facilities and markets, produce gas and condensate at good flow rates from as many as three separate layers as deep as 2,700 m.

Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected].