ONGC could cut Siberian oil production 17% in 2013
TOMSK. Jan 17 (Interfax) -India's Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) aims to reduce oil production in Russia's Tomsk region 17.4% to 512,900 tonnes in 2013.
Imperial Energy, which manages the overseas assets of ONGC, said in a statement that production in Russia fell 21.4% in 2012 to 621,100 tonnes and was 2.3% below target.
LLC Nord Imperial and LLC Alliance Oil & Gas, the Russia-based subsidiaries of
"The general reduction of the oil production scopes is related to search for optimal and economically feasible technologies of oil recovery from tight reservoirs," the company said.
"The management team of Imperial Energy plans to find cutting-edge technologies and, together with the technology partners, to launch pilot projects for development of Bazhenov suite, which holds great production potential," it said.
"Imperial Energy Group hopes that in 2013 the government will take a decision to release the users from paying mineral extraction tax for production of mineral deposits from tight reservoirs. All these actions will allow us to increment our Group's oil production volumes in future," it said.
Imperial Energy is exploring and producing hydrocarbons through two subsidiaries, Nord Imperial LLC and Allianceneftegaz LLC.
Nord Imperial holds hydrocarbon exploration and production licenses for three sections - Festivalny, Snezhny and Kyiv-Yegansky. Allianceneftegaz owns six licenses - for the Maysky section, the first, second and third Yuzhno-Festivalny sections, and the first and second Verkhne-Nyurolsky sections. Production is currently under way at the Festivalny, Kyiv-Yegansky and Maysky sections.
The two companies are subsidiaries of Imperial Energy Ltd., which joined India's ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL) (manages ONGC's overseas assets) in January 2009. The corporation also owns 20% of the Sakhalin-1 project.
