Samotlorneftegaz anticipates producing 6.5% less oil this year
KHANTY-MANSIYSK. June 22 (Interfax) - OJSC Samotlorneftegas expects its oil production this year will decrease 6.5% from last year to 17,536,653 tonnes, the company's annual report says.
In the period 2012-2014, the company plans to produce 49.981 million tonnes of oil.
The report says that the watercut of product at the deposit has reached 94.6%, which is having a negative effect on the economic aspect of oil-production.
To address the situation, in 2010, 35 wells got new technology to limit water flow, which made it possible to cut the volume of liquid produced by 2.5 million cubic meters (mcm) and to reduce the amount of oil-production operational costs by $1.5 million. Last year, similar technology was applied to 36 wells, and in 2012-2014 the plan is to operate 250 wells annually.
Since 2010, the company has been carrying out a program of making more intensive use of infrastructural facilities with the aim of optimizing operating expenses to maintain projected rates of production and transporting hydrocarbons, and also to facilitate recovery.
In 2010-2014, overall investment in the program amounts to $86.309 million. The PI (profitability index) is 3.23 and NPV (net present value) is $145.314 million. The reduction of operating costs for this period will be $2.528 million, that of capital expenditures $47.1 million.
Plans are that this year the company's producing wells will drop by 4% from last year to 6,237, while the number of injection wells increases 4% to 2,720.
Samotlorneftegaz is TNK-BP's biggest production outfit, working the central and southwestern parts of the Samotlor deposit, extracting 65% of all its current recoverable resources.
The deposit was opened in 1965 and put into industrial development four years later. In 1980, oil production at the deposit had reached 159 million annual tonnes. Oil production is done by OJSC Samotlorneftegaz and OJSC TNK-Nizhnevartovsk, both part of TNK-BP.
Available geological resources at the Samotlor deposit amount to 55 billion barrels. Now they are estimated at roughly 1 billion tonnes, which means that the deposit is one of the five largest in the world. Proven reserves run to around 4 billion barrels (per SEC methodology).
