Russia seeks Bazhenov suite technology, aims for 'faster, cheaper' shale revolution than in U.S
MOSCOW. Aug 3 (Interfax) - The Energy Ministry wants to find unique domestic technology to extract oil from Bazhenov suite deposits in order to replicate the shale revolution in Russia, only faster and at less cost than in the U.S.
The ministry has announced a tender totaling 30 million rubles for proposals on preparing a program to create promising new technologies in prospecting, exploration and production of Bazhenov reserves.
The tender's technical specifications say that Bazhenov reserves could reach up to 10 billion tonnes and perhaps as much as 20 billion tonnes. For comparison, Russia has produced 22.7 billion tonnes of oil throughout its history. "Creation of prospecting, exploration and production technologies for unconventional oil horizons in the Bazhenov suite create unique preconditions for providing the oil industry and the Russian economy with a supply of crude oil that will last for a large part of the 21st century in a region with developed infrastructure and logistics," the tender documents say.
"The U.S. worked more than 30 years to develop shale oil and gas technology and invested more than $30 billion in them. Russia is obligated to resolve this task for the Bazhenov suite in at most seven-ten years with substantially less investment," it says.
However, it will not be possible to simply duplicate American technology. "The Bazhenov collector fundamentally differs from the collector at U.S. shale oil fields, and simply borrowing or modernizing U.S. technologies will not solve the Bazhenov oil problem."
The tender winner must prepare proposals for a Bazhenov suite research program. The program must include a list of geological-geophysical studies, refining the geological model of the Bazhenov suite and raising the level of confidence in the evaluation of oil and gas resources contained it.
The program must also contain proposals on the technologies for prospecting and exploring Bazhenov oil strata, on studying the nature of the collector, and defining parameters for estimating reserves (effective porosity, hydrocarbon saturation, net reservoir thickness, deposit area, and so on).
The tender winner must provide an evaluation of the possibilities of seismic surveying at model and benchmark fields, develop probabilistic seismogeologic criteria for forecasting thicknesses, the quality of collectors and the hydrocarbon content coefficient of the Bazhenov suite. The winner must also prepare proposals on creating testing equipment and conducting laboratory experiments aimed at optimizing Bazhenov development systems, in order to avoid drilling a large number of high-cost wells.
In addition, the winner must propose promising, cost-effective new exploration and production technologies for Bazhenov fields. The time needed to develop such technologies should not exceed 7-10 years or cost more than 30 billion rubles, with investment from the budget not exceeding 10 billion rubles. The money should be allocated to conduct scientific research and pilot operations and field testing of the methodologies and technologies created.
All of the proposals must take into account potential shifts in hydrocarbon market conditions up to 2040-2050.
The proposals must be prepared by November 30.