OREANDA-NEWS. On February 08, 2007 Timothy Summers, Chief Operating Officer of TNK-BP, said that the capital investments of the Russian-British oil company TNK-BP will amount to $4 billion compared to $3,5 billion last year, reported the press-centre of TNK-BP.

According to him, a major part of these capital investments goes into drilling. Last year, TNK-BP started signing long-term contracts with its contractors for drilling works and has concluded contracts for a total of $3 billion.

The company is expected to stabilize the level of its drilling activities at 500–550 wells a year. Mr. Summers pointed out that the company will probably drill fewer new wells and increase the number of sidetrack wells, which will allow the company to produce oil in those areas of mature field where no oil could have been produced by means of conventional drilling.

TNK-BP was established in 2003 by merging TNK, SIDANCO, ONACO, and the BP assets in Russia and Ukraine. The company is owned on parity basis by BP and the AAR consortium consisting of Alpha Group, Access Industries, and Renova. TNK-BP explores and produces oil in West Siberia, the Privolzhye and Ural region, East Siberia, and Sakhalin.