The Soviet Union's willingness to disclose detailed data on western Siberia's Tyumen province oil fields and its eagerness to sell the data to foreign operators have grown in tandem with Moscow's severe shortage of capital for the petroleum industry.
Knowledgeable western observers ascribe the U.S.S.R.'s falling oil flow more to a lack of development money than to a decline in crude reserves. Poor management, low worker morale, a chronic shortage of production equipment, and continued inability to improve technology significantly contribute to Soviet problems in western Siberia and other petroleum areas.
The Gorbachev administration has been forced to transfer funds from nearly all branches of heavy industry in its effort to provide more food, consumer goods, and housing for a restive population.
In addition, fixed wholesale prices for oil and gas combined with soaring prices for petroleum industry equipment have impoverished many Soviet oil producing administrations.
The West's first disclosure of an exploration/development contract with Moscow occurred last month. Ste. Nationale Elf Aquitaine, Paris, agreed to a program not in western Siberia but in the Volga/Caspian Sea region, far to the southwest (OGJ, May 28, p. 26).
TYUMEN PRODUCTION SAGS
Tyumen province, easily the U.S.S.R.'s No. 1 producing region, is likely to see its 1990 crude and condensate flow dip to the lowest level in at least 5 years. The province is dotted with oil and gas fields ranging in size from small to supergiant (see map, p. 40).
The official long term Tyumen oil production goal for 1990 was about 8.5 million b/d, close to two thirds of the target for the entire U.S.S.R. If the sharp crude/condensate production drop reported by the Soviets for the first quarter of 1990 continues, it is likely the province will not provide as much oil as the 7.54 million b/d reported for 1986.
In 1988, Tyumen province produced more than 8 million b/d of crude and condensate. Some Soviet sources predicted the area has enough reserves to raise flow as high as 10 million b/d.
There is no doubt the decline in production from Tyumen's largest oil fields has severely hurt the province's total flow. Supergiant Samotlor and giant Mamontovo, Fedorovo, Pravdinsk, and the Balyk fields, all in Tyumen province's most productive oil district, are in decline.
BIG FINDS DECLINE
Discovery of giant oil fields with reserves of at least 500 million bbl peaked in western Siberia during 1961-65. The area's giant finds dropped sharply during the U.S.S.R.'s official 5 year plans for 1966-70 and 1971-75 and leveled off in 1976-80.
No giant western Siberian oil field discoveries were reported in 1981-85, although the number of "large" and "medium and small" fields found in Tyumen soared to a record 119. Among Tyumen's biggest oil fields, Samotlor and Mamontovo were discovered in 1965, Ust-Balyk in 1961, and Fedorovo in 1971.
The U.S.S.R. Ministry of Geology's quarterly reports on oil and gas field discoveries during the late 1980s present a bleak picture with respect to giant oil and gas finds. However, those listings are far from complete and provide a much too gloomy impression of exploration successes in western Siberia and nationwide.
Recent giant gas discoveries in the far northern Barents and Kara seas were not mentioned in the Ministry of Geology's quarterly reports. Disclosure of the huge Tengiz oil strike near the northeast coast of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan was long delayed.
In the mid-1980s, Moscow's most complete publications of gas, gas/condensate, and gas/condensate/oil fields listed 13 on western Siberia's huge Yamal Peninsula, north of the Arctic circle. New maps released by the Ministry of the Oil and Gas Industry show 20 such fields.
Moreover, the areas covered by a number of Yamal fields appear substantially larger than before. Some of them now show sizable extensions offshore into the Kara Sea to the west and Ob Bay to the east.
On the east side of Ob Bay, also north of the Arctic Circle, supergiant Yamburg field has grown in area on the latest Soviet maps. They indicate significant offshore extensions of Yamburg into Ob Gulf.
RESERVES UNCERTAIN
Total Soviet gas reserves haven't been officially announced for many years, although they have grown substantially in western Siberia in the opinion of western observers. New pay zones in western Siberia's huge northern gas fields apparently have gone unreported or underreported.
Official reserve figures for individual Soviet oil fields remain secret, as do data for the nation as a whole. Only on rare occasions has the U.S.S.R. provided information on reserves in specific gas fields and nationwide.
Last fall, Moscow said the Soviet Union had 2,800 oil and gas fields, of which 182 were classified as giants. It noted that those giant fields held 68% of the nation's initial explored hydrocarbon reserves.
Typical of the Ministry of Geology's gas reports on new field discoveries was the one covering third quarter 1989. It listed four oil strikes in western Siberia, none of them major.
Best flow reported from a western Siberian oil discovery well in third quarter 1989 was 432 b/d in Bitten field. Discovery wells in the other three oil fields listed flowed 81 b/d, 34-71 b/d, and 45 b/d.
CLARKE'S ANALYSIS
Writing in last month's issue of Geopolitics of Energy, a newsletter published by Conant & Associates Ltd., Washington, D.C., James W. Clarke of the U.S. Geological Survey's World Energy Resources Program said a highly placed U.S.S.R. Ministry of Geology spokesman pegged western Siberia's recoverable oil reserves at about 30 billion bbl, nearly the same as for the entire U.S.
Clarke, who has specialized for more than 30 years in the petroleum geology of the U.S.S.R., referred to the belief in some quarters that "the Soviets have very large oil reserves, and for some reason they are keeping quiet about it."
He cited reports of big oil strikes recently in western Siberia and the Timan-Pechora region of northeastern European Russia.
The USGS geologist offered three reasons for the Soviet crude oil production slide:
- New western Siberian fields placed on stream in recent years have had such large initial water cuts that oil production has been below expectations.
- Some fields would produce more if proper technology were available to sustain recovery.
- The Soviets must keep capital investment at a high level if they are to maintain or increase production. But Moscow has recently reduced funding for the U.S.S.R.'s oil and gas industry to make more money available for providing consumer goods.
Clark expressed considerable optimism over prospects for joint ventures by large and small western companies in Soviet oil exploration and development. He said, "The advance of western companies into the new realm must be cautious and prudent, but the opportunity is here for the Soviet Union and western firms to accomplish much together."
EQUIPMENT LACKING
Soviet officials recently have been harshly outspoken in their criticism of the nation's oil industry and its suppliers. They point out that deliveries of high strength pipe and equipment to the U.S.S.R.'s oil fields have lagged far behind plan.
This has been especially true since ethnic turmoil and strikes crippled manufacture of oil field equipment in Azerbaijan, the nation's leading supplier.
A high priority program for the U.S.S.R. to make its own gas lift equipment at a plant in the Ukrainian city of Sumy has been a costly failure.
The Sumy built gas lift equipment was slated to replace units imported from France and Japan that had been criticized in the Soviet press. The Sumy gas lift equipment was billed as superior in design to foreign made units but proved inferior in operation, with deliveries below plan.
In western Siberia, workers have threatened to strike unless wages, working conditions, housing, and food supplies improve. Top Soviet officials held meetings in Moscow in March and April, promising to make all possible effort to solve the "crisis" in Tyumen province.
Directors of the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers' Bureau on the Fuel and Energy Complex were criticized for poor organization and weak control over implementation of their objectives.
Plans were discussed for establishing a new government commission on the oil industry with special emphasis on western Siberia. Possibly reflecting concern over the feud between the Ministry of Geology and the Ministry of the Oil and Gas Industry over reserves and production potential, the Council of Ministers proposed a study to determine the true prospects for developing western Siberia's oil and gas complex.
FOREIGN PARTICIPATION
Moscow is stepping up a program to attract western participation in Tyumen oil field development. MDSeis, a joint venture of the U.S.S.R.'s Ministry of the Oil and Gas Industry and Professional Geophysics Inc. (PGI), Houston, is offering information packages and reviews of joint venture opportunities covering four areas in Tyumen province and one in the Volga-Ural region (OGJ, Mar. 19, p. 15).
Three of the Tyumen areas have provided headaches for the Soviet oil industry, and the fourth is regarded as likely to pose problems when it goes on commercial production. Moscow sees good prospects for easing difficulties in all four joint venture areas by introducing western methods and better equipment.
In the far north, astride the Arctic Circle, a joint venture area has been delineated around Russkoye oil and gas field. Discovered in 1968, Russkoye gas reserves have been estimated at more than 5 tcf Flow from an initial gas well was about 70 MMcfd. But Russkoye is far east of the present large diameter pipeline network tapping other giant gas fields in northern Tyumen province.
The main difficulty presented by Russkoye is how to exploit its sizable heavy crude reserves in at least six Cretaceous zones at 2,175-4,000 ft.
The viscous crude is about 19 gravity. Test flows from several zones initially averaged only 28-34 b/d, although deeper intervals yielded 320 b/d.
The Soviets began an "experimental/commercial" fireflood project in Russkoye field in 1983. Apparently the project was a failure.
Another Tyumen joint venture is proposed for the Krasnoleninsk area far to the southwest of Russkoye. The Krasnoleninsk area, northwest of the city of Khanty-Mansiisk, lies considerably west of the prolific Middle Ob district.
Oil was discovered in Kamennoye field of the Krasnoleninsk arch in 1962, and commercial development began in the early 1980s. The field's pay is in Jurassic and Cretaceous formations found originally at 4,757-7,546 ft.
Initial oil flow in the Jurassic was 1,095 b/d and 88 b/d in the Cretaceous. Recent Soviet data-but information not as new as that provided by PGI-list at least 12 fields in the Krasnoleninsk arch, although some Soviet maps show most of these fields as part of the large area covered by Lebazhye field.
Initial gas flow from a Lebazhye well was as much 35 MMcfd.
The main problem in the Krasnoleninsk area, as well as in the proposed joint venture Vanyegansk area on the far eastern flank of the Middle Ob district, is the failure of fields to yield as much oil as predicted.
Government decreed oil production quotas have not been achieved, often by wide margins. Production targets in both areas have been cut back but are still not being met.
Soviet maps provided by PGI show two fields in the Vanyegansk joint venture area-Vanyegan and the smaller Ai-Yegan. Big Varyegan field adjoins the northeast corner of the Vanyegansk area, and other fields in the Varyegan complex lie just north of the joint venture area.
Vanyegan field, on the Vanyegan arch, was discovered in 1974. Development began in 1978, and 14 pay zones in the Jurassic and Cretaceous were found by the mid-1980s.
Oil flows from Vanyegan's first wells were as large as 1,205 b/d in the Jurassic. Cretaceous gas flowed up to 21 MMcfd.
A fourth possible joint venture area, Bakhilovsk, lies northeast of Vanyegan. The new Soviet map shows two fields in the area: Verkhne-Kolik-Yegan and Bakhilov.
Verkhne-Kolik-Yegan oil and gas field, on the big Kharampur monocline, was discovered in 1981. As of the mid-1980s, pay was found in a single Jurassic zone at about 8,172 ft.
Test flow from an initial oil well was 61 b/d
Copyright 1990 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.