Gazprom Neft establishes Russia’s 1st test facilities for developing hard-to-recover oil production technologies

St.Petersburg, December 3 - Neftegaz.RU. Gazprom Neft is the 1^st oil company in Russia to be awarded 2 of a new kind of upstream license - for developing technologies for prospecting for hard-to-recover reserves - at the same time.

Technological test sites for evaluating domestic solutions are to be established at the Palyanovsky and Salymsky-3 license blocks in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra.

This new subsoil-usage category - in contrast to traditional exploration and production licenses - is intended to cover the development, testing and deployment of innovations for developing hard-to-recover oil and for enhancing oil recovery (EOR).

This mechanism will mean companies can focus on developing technologies rather than on the drilling and development commitments typical under the traditional operating model.

It also simplifies procedures for drafting and approving project documentation.
Establishing test sites considerably increases scope for field-testing technologies, and for their subsequent fine-tuning and roll-out at existing and future oil and gas assets.

Alexander Dyukov, Gazprom Neft´s Chairman of the Management Board, said:

• We are the 1^st company in Russia to be awarded licenses not for geological prospecting or oil production, but for producing technologies for developing hard-to-recover and unconventional reserves
• This is an important event, for the entire industry
• This kind of subsoil use facilitates the establishment of innovative test facilities, at which oil and gas market players will be able to focus on finding new technological solutions for producing hard-to-recover oil
• Importantly, these licenses make it possible to involve a wide circle of partners in this work, without bureaucratic complications
• We are confident that the new subsoil-usage criteria emerging in our country will promote more dynamic technological development within the oil and gas industry

A network of technological test sites for testing E&P solutions in developing Bazhenov and Domanic formations and Achimovsky and Paleozoic deposits is to be rolled-out across the Volga-Urals region and Western Siberia over the next few years.

Open-access innovation test-sites are also be established throughout Russia, at which all oil & gas market players - from subsoil users and oilfield services companies to R&D centres and universities - will be able to test their technologies.