Salym Petroleum Development: Mature Field Development
Salym Petroleum Development N.V. (SPD), jointly with the State Commission for Reserves (GKZ) and the Kazan Federal University (KFU) held the Mature Field. Development 3.0 conference in Kazan. The conference was also sponsored by the government of the Republic of Tatarstan and the government of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra (KHMAO) and focused on enhanced oil recovery techniques.
The forum brought together about 120 participants representing federal agencies, regional authorities, major Russian and international oil and gas, petrochemical and service companies, and research institutes. The list of speakers included Igor Shpurov, the CEO of GKZ, Boris Kostyukhin, the director of the department for the environment and subsurface use of KHMAO, Renat Muslimov, advisor to the President of the Republic of Tatarstan on oilfield development and professor of KFU, Danis Nurgaliev, director of the department for geology and oil and gas technologies of KFU, Paul Zeppenfeld, General Manager Development of Shell in Russia, and Yakov Volokitin, SPD Petroleum Engineer Manager.
The two days’ event focused on the development of mature fields at high levels of depletion, and methods to enhance production from hard-to-recover reserves in Western Siberia, Volga and Urals. The participants also explored economic and technological solutions to make the best use of the resource potential of mature fields. The conference had special emphasis on tertiary recovery methods and the preparedness of the Russian oil services market to support such projects.
Experts speaking at the forum noted that innovative technologies were required to achieve incremental production and enhance oil recovery in mature fields and tap hard-to-recover reserves, in addition to traditional ones. The conference gave a positive assessment of SPD’s ASP pilot project to test a breakthrough enhanced oil recovery technology. Presentations from Shell and Total highlighted the international experience of using such technologies.
The two days of deliberations culminated in a resolution drafted by the organizing committee and conference delegates to emphasize a consolidated industry position on mature field development in Russia. Among other things, the resolution states: “Single-handedly, companies cannot resolve all the issues associated with the development of hard-to-recover deposits. The challenge requires a coordinated effort from government authorities, oil and gas companies and the academic community. Enhanced oil recovery methods from existing fields are a potential source of incremental production, but such production is hardly going to develop in the existing economic environment. Oil and gas companies should engage in dialogue with government authorities to identify potential projects and have them evaluated from the economic and technological perspective to later solicit government support for the use of various enhanced oil recovery technologies”.
Summing up the conference results, Yakov Volokitin has said: “The discussion of which methods are most efficient from the economic, environmental and technological standpoint has been going on for a long time already. Our company is an active participant in this industry dialogue. I am confident that this joint work of the government authorities and leading oil companies within the conference will elevate the dialogue to a higher level. I hope that we are going to see a whole range of new tertiary recovery projects in Russia in the coming years.”
