In Ugra, It Was Proposed to Introduce Benefits for Exploration and Production of Hard-to-Recover Oil
According to the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use, in Russia over the past nine years, the volume of hard-to-recover oil reserves (TRIZ) has increased by 3.8 billion tons, an annual increase of three percent on average. In Western Siberia, 37 percent of the resources belong to this category. In the total volume of oil production in Yugra, hard-to-recover oil accounts for 24 percent, or 52 million tons, by 2040 this figure may grow to 50 percent.
Pumping black gold is really becoming more difficult, and not because an agreement has been reached within OPEC+ to reduce production. According to Yulia Lavrikova, Director of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an increase in the share of hard-to-recover reserves negatively affects the overall profitability of the industry. In order to maintain production at the same level, new technologies are needed to extract medium-hard and hard-to-recover reserves. Accordingly, their development should be encouraged.
The special tax regime will create favorable conditions for investments in the reproduction of the raw material base, in the development of technologies
The authorities of the KhMAO have prepared a whole package of proposals to stimulate business to increase investments in exploration and ensure timely reproduction of the mineral resource base. In addition, there is an idea to introduce benefits for companies applying innovations, including the so–called tertiary methods of increasing well productivity: injection of natural gas or steam into the reservoir, injection of chemicals and others. For example, artificial reservoir heating reduces the viscosity of oil, and chemicals change their physico–chemical properties, thereby increasing the extraction coefficient to 30-50 percent.
It is planned to develop preferences for hard-to-recover reserves jointly with federal agencies and subsoil users.
– As a mechanism, a reduction in the mineral extraction tax (MET) from additional extraction using such technology can be used. Or it can be a tax deduction for the amount of costs incurred for implementation. I would like to note the effectiveness of the special tax regime mechanism, this is an initiative of the Ministry of Energy of Russia and the Government of Yugra. Today 151 subsurface plots have been transferred to it in the region. According to the results of 2023, oil production from them amounted to 112 million tons. This is more than half of the total result,“ says Ruslan Kuharuk, Acting Governor of Yugra.
He called for extending the special tax regime to other groups of subsurface areas, which should create favorable conditions for investments in the reproduction of the mineral resource base, as well as in the development of domestic equipment, the development of import-substituting industries.
These issues, in particular, were discussed at an industry meeting on the eve of the Oil and Gas Industry Worker‘s Day in Khanty–Mansiysk. It was devoted to strengthening raw materials and technological sovereignty, improving measures to support the fuel and energy sector in the context of achieving national development goals. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, Rosnedra and deputies of the State Duma.
It is also proposed to amend the law “On Subsoil“ in order to accelerate the development of new territories of the Arctic zone of Russia – Berezovsky and Beloyarsk districts of the KhMAO. Their resource base is 166 million tons of oil and 30 billion cubic meters of recoverable gas reserves, that is, these places are very promising for exploration and implementation of high-tech industrial projects.
By the way
In 2023, Ugra extracted 216 million tons of black gold from the depths, or 40.7 percent of the total Russian volumes. This region accounts for every twentieth ton of global oil production. In total, 86 companies with exploration and production licenses operate in this sector of the economy. Their investments totaled 800 billion rubles last year.
