Gazprom Neft cut its non-traditional oil production costs in 2020, taking this down to RUB13,000 per tonne and delivering a 20% reduction on 2019 costs. Production costs are expected to reach RUB8,500 per tonne by the end of 2021, allowing the company to start commercial production of Bazhenov strata at fields with developed infrastructure already in place.
Gazpromneft-Technology Partnerships (the company’s industrial integration hub, previously known as the Bazhen Technology Centre) delivered a 78% year-on-year increase in production at Bazhenov strata in 2020, reaching 100,000 tonnes — new technological solutions for developing non-traditional hydrocarbons having allowed the business to more than halve the costs of producing Bazhenov oil, from RUB30,000 at the start of the project in 2017 to RUB13,000 by 2021.
2020 also saw the construction of a high-tech well involving a two-kilometre horizontal shaft, 30-stage hydraulic fracking, and high-speed fluid injection (of up to 16 cubic metres per minute) at the Palyanovskoye field in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug—Yugra — this first time all operations on such complex construction have been undertaken using exclusively Russian-produced equipment.
Gazprom Neft is expecting to complete its testing of a range of solutions for the viable production of Bazhenov oil in 2021. Eight wells are to be drilled at the Palyanovskoye field for final confirmation of the effectiveness of commercial technology for developing non-traditional reserves. Completing this experiment, and reducing non-traditional oil production costs to RUB8,500 per tonne, will make it possible for viable production of Bazhenov hydrocarbons to commence at West Siberian fields with infrastructure already in place.
Alexey Vashkevich Director for Technological Development, Gazprom Neft said: “We have come a long way in being able to create the impetus for developing “hard-to-recover“’ oil, as well as halving production costs — at a time, moreover, when import-substitution levels in building the high-tech wells necessary for developing non-traditional reserves reached more than 95%. Many of the solutions developed with our involvement are unparalleled throughout the industry. Deploying a commercial technology for developing the Bazhenov Formation will not only make it possible to produce an extra one million tonnes per year from these reserves by 2025, but will also open up access to other tight reserves in Western Siberia.“
The Bazhenov Formation or Bazhenov Shale is a geological stratum in the West Siberian basin. It was formed from sediment deposited in a deep-water sea in Tithonian–early Berriasian time. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates published in June 2013, the total Bazhenov shale prospective area has a resource of a risked tight oil in-place of 1,243 billion barrels.
(Source and Image: Gazprom Neft – Drilling the Bazhenov strata in Western Siberia)