OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2007. TNK-BP is planning 1—2% growth in oil production next year by means of new major projects, stated the company’s president Robert Dudley the other day. One of those projects is development of the Uvat group of fields in the south of Tyumen oblast, where a new oil and gas province is being created by TNK-BP.

“We are planning for a renewal of oil production growth beginning in 2008, and we are currently investing significant volumes of funds in new fields,” explained Robert Dudley.  “The main one is Samotlor field, bet we also have a whole series of major projects.”

In spite of the fifty-year history of oil production in Western Siberia, there still are reserves in the region.  “They are difficult to develop.  State-of-the-art technologies are needed, but Western Siberia does have a future,” believes Robert Dudley.

One of the new projects in a key region of the company’s presence (Tyumen) is the Uvat project of developing a group of fields in the south of the oblast.  A new oil and gas province is being created in the region with total reserves of 200—250 million tons and an annual production of 10 million tons. Over the next three years, $2..5 billion will be invested in the project. Such enormous capital investments are connected with the complex geological structure of the oil—containing rock, their great depth of occurrence, and total absence of infrastructure. The last problem is already being resolved: last winter TNK-BP laid 650 km of roads and delivered 1.1 million tons of cargo to the region.

The investment project to begin development of poorly extractable reserves at depleted hydrocarbon fields in the Uvat region by implementing new technologies is being realized by TNK-BP in keeping with an agreement on cooperation with the government of Tyumen Oblast signed in 2004. Robert Dudley named another prospective oil production region: Eastern Siberia. “Here there is a large project: the Verkhnechonsk field on the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline route.” In his opinion, there are many feedstock resources in Russia that no one has even begun to develop yet. “Tremendous work remains to be done over the next 5—10 years for the creation of mechanisms that will make it possible to maintain production at its current high level.”

The company will invest about $500 million in updating its Russian oil refineries before 2009.  “Over the last 3—4 years, we invested nearly half a billion dollars in updating refineries, and over the next couple of years we will invest another half billion,” said the TNK-BP president.  “The program’s goal is to attain motor fuel production facilities of the highest quality.”