OREANDA-NEWS. April 20, 2007. In April, Verkhnechonskneftegaz started drilling wells in the Verkhnechonsk field, said Sergey Brezitsky, Executive Vice President, Upstream, TNK-BP, to the press. TNK-BP is a shareholder of Verkhnechonskneftegaz.

According to him, $300 million will be used in 2007 for development of this field. Three drilling rigs will drill 27 wells in this field during the year. The results of drilling will be used for making plans for the next year.

Apart from that, noted Mr. Brezitsky, TNK-BP is planning to invest approximately $500 million in the following two years into development of the Kamennoe field, which will increase the annual volume of production within this project from 1 million tons to 3 million tons of oil. According to Mr. Brezitsky, the company started drilling a well in the Russkoe field for estimating the Achim deposits in the field.

TNK-BP intends to start commercial production of oil in the Uvat project in 2009.