Gazprom Neft sees potential to boost Kuyumba oil production to 10 mln tonnes
MOSCOW. Sept 20 (Interfax) - Gazprom Neft sees the potential to increase oil production at the Kuyumba deposit, where the company and Rosneft via Slavneft are developing the project, from the planned 7.5 million to 10 million tonnes, the head of the company's prospecting and resource base development section, Alexei Vashkevich, said during a meeting of the Eastern Siberia subsoil resource usage agency held at the Natural Resources and Ecology Ministry.
"In 2012 there was put together a profile of production, three main phases for project implementation were determined, in the framework of which Kuyumba will move to producing 7.5 million tonnes. There is another optional phase, the phase of geological prospecting work, today it is not part of the main investment project, but it confers the opportunity to suppose that project production can be increased to ten million tonnes of oil," Vashkevich said.
In the context of the infrastructural component of the Kuyumba with Transneft "fully mutual understanding has been reached," he said.
Commenting on the possibility of utilizing Kuyumba gas, Vashkevich said that the nearest gas pipeline is at least 700 km away, so the plan for using the gas is pumping it into strata.
The deposit was opened in 1972 is major in terms of resources. At the time the prospecting license for it was obtained, initial recoverable C1+C2 resources were around 130 million tonnes. In 1997-2008, Slavneft increased C1 resources to over 115 million tonnes and C2 - 147 million tonnes. As of January 1, 2009, recoverable C1+C2 resources topped 390 million tonnes.
