Twelve cos confirm interest in developing oil and gas fields - Ukrnafta chief

MOSCOW. May 31 (Interfax) - Twelve local and foreign companies have confirmed their interest in developing oil and gas fields in Ukraine in writing, Ukrnafta CEO Sergei Koretsky said.

Ukrainian quoted the company's website as saying that Ukrnafta had selected 20 fields both in the east and west of Ukraine for development with investors.

"These 20 fields between them contain reserves of 12 million tonnes of oil with condensate and 30 billion cubic meters of gas. To date, 12 companies that have confirmed their interest in participating in this competitive bidding process in writing. These are companies from Ukraine, Slovakia, France, Britain, the United States, Canada and Mexico," Koretsky was quoted as saying.

He said the key principle for attracting investors is simple: Ukrnafta's profit from these operations must be higher with the involvement of a partner than without it.

In addition, he said the company planned to develop the oil production services market in Ukraine, for which it is ready to offer long-term five-year contracts with guaranteed work load.

"We expect to attract domestic and foreign contractors in such areas as the drilling of horizontal wells and sidetracks, hydraulic fracturing, coiled tubing, the latest advanced recovery and artificial lift methods, production optimization systems, geological exploration and more," Koretsky said.

He said the success of increasing production would depend directly on the parallel development of oil production services in Ukraine.

The company also said that in 2023 Ukrnafta planned to start drilling nine wells both on a standalone basis and with external contractors. These will be horizontal and inclined wells and sidetracks.

Ukrnafta 's plans to increase oil production 5.8% to 1.45 million tonnes and gas 0.3% to 1.04 billion cubic meters in 2023. The growth in oil output will be achieved by investing UAH 5.5 billion in drilling, workovers and special permits at new fields.