Gazprom to report new Yuzhno-Kirinskoye reserves to state commission in March
MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax) - Gazprom will submit new reserves data from the third and fourth wells at the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye gas condensate field offshore Sakhalin, which will serve as a source of gas for the future Vladivostok LNG plant, to the State Reserves Commission (GKZ) in March.
Drilling data for the first and second wells has produced estimated C1+C2 reserves of 564 billion cubic meters gas and 71.7 million tonnes condensate. The next two wells were drilled in 2013 and two more will be drilled in 2014.
"A model for the field is being created that reflects significant oil and gas reserves growth," Vsevolod Cherepanov, head of Gazprom's Department for Gas, Gas Condensate and Oil Production, told reporters.
"There's more gas [than oil], but there is oil," Cherepanov said, declining to give an estimate.
Cherepanov said at a meeting devoted to offshore on December 25 that "the third and fourth wells at Yuzhno-Kirinskoye, which have produced commercial oil and gas flows, were drilled by November 1, 2013."
If oil and gas occur together, oil is extracted first and gas only after many years, but the Vladivostok LNG plant will need to be receiving Yuzhno-Kirinskoye gas as early as 2018.
Cherepanov did not say whether the oil ad gas reserves were intercommunicating. The model is still being formed, he said. But there are no particular problems with the presence of oil, he said. "On the contrary, it's good when a field's reserves increase," he said.
Cherepanov said Gazprom had approved the scheme for developing the field internally, and that the Central Commission for Development would approve it once the field's reserves had been confirmed.
Yuzhno-Kirinskoye is located in the Sea of Okhotsk, 35 km northeast of Sakhalin Island. The sea depth at the site varies from 110 to 320 meters.
The field is due to go on stream in 2018. The field's development will be eligible for tax breaks.