OREANDA-NEWS. September 13, 2007. Utilization of associated gas is becoming a high-priority task in the fuel and energy complex of Russia. The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation is planning to work out changes in the legislation for utilization of associated petroleum gas in 2007, but, according to Yuri Trutnev, Minister of Natural Resources, “there are no actual decisions so far.”

Nevertheless, many companies have tackled the problem of associated petroleum gas utilization by their own forces. For example, TNK-BP is successfully implementing a program for utilization of associated petroleum gas and minimization of its burning. This program, named Gas and scheduled until 2010, is aimed at improving the environmental situation in the regions of company presence and increasing the degree of associated gas utilization. The factor of associated gas utilization will be increased to 95% by 2010 to approach international standards. The load of flares will decrease by 1,350 million cubic meters of gas a year.

Many flares polluting the sky across the fields of TNK-BP in the Orenburg Region have already been extinguished. A gas compressor plant with a capacity of 250 million cubic meters a year was put into operation in June 2006 in the Zagorsk-Lebyazhinsk group of fields. Flares were put out in 2007 in the Kurmanaevsk group of fields. Construction of the Rostashinsk gas compressor station will be completed soon. Works are currently underway for increasing the capacity of the gas compressor station in the Pokrovskoe group of fields.

The Pokrovskoe gas compressor station constructed more than 20 years ago is no longer sufficient for the current large volumes of gas. This will soon be a practically new gas compressor station and a small gas processing plant, which will turn out dry stripped gas, propane-butane fraction, and natural gas gasoline. As a result, the flares will go out and the productivity of the plant will double, which will minimize the volume of gas burnt in flares.

Efforts for utilization of associated gas are underway in the small power industry, where gas-turbine power generation plants are being constructed and put into operation for supplying inexpensive electric power to oil companies and nearby populated areas. For example, electric power is being generated in the Vakhitovskoe field by four gas-operated power plants and a newly constructed higher-capacity gas-turbine power plant. Three more gas-turbine power plants were launched in 2006.

The places where oilmen work have no infrastructure, power transmission lines, and transformer substations. For this reason, development of the small power industry in these places is highly desirable and economically expedient. Even some populated areas, such as the Bobrovsk group of fields, experience shortage of electric power, for which reason, a gas-turbine power plant with a capacity of 18 MW may be constructed in the nearest future. TNK-BP has allocated approximately 15 billion rubles for solving these problems in the Orenburg Region. The main purpose of the Gas program is to use associated gas for the good of people, the region, and the company instead of burning it in flares to no avail.