Weatherford’s Mikhail Gelfgat Talks to SPE Russian Oil and Gas
Tell us about two of the key industry areas that will be addressed at SPE Russian Oil & Gas?
1) Hard-to-recover or unconventional resources is one of the most important topics discussed at all world forums in the recent years; the reason is the occurrence of new drilling and completion technologies that make the production from low-permeability reservoirs, certainly one of the primary oil sources in the nearest decades, commercially viable.
2) Optimisation of brown¬field production; Russia has acquired technologies; it is only a matter of their systematic implementation.
Can you describe some of the latest technology and technical issues that will feature in the SPE technical programe?
1) All aspects of multi-zone hydraulic fracturing related to increasing the efficiency and reliability of well completions will be discussed both at the technical sessions and topical luncheons.
2) Drilling with borehole-reservoir pressure control (managed pressure drilling) will be reselected in the programme being one of the key methods to increasing safety and efficiency of well construction in abnormal pressures and unstable reservoirs.
3) Current status and features of horizontal drilling and multilateral wells is an important topic for the development of both brown¬ fields and drilling in low permeability reservoirs.
Please can you describe some of the latest trends in our industry?
1) Moving the development of new oil and gas -fields to the Russian Arctic and East requires integrated solutions to extremely complicated infrastructure challenges; safety and efficiency in the well construction and further exploitation become of primary importance.
2) One of the main industry issues is the reliability of reserve estimates based on geological prospecting works, planning efficiency improvement, including application of the latest technologies in early development phases.
