OREANDA-NEWS. February 07, 2007. TNK-BP is successfully implementing the Gas Program started three years ago and constructing a gas collection infrastructure, gas processing facilities, and power plants using gas for generation of electric power, reported the press-centre of TNK-BP.

Oil has been the main product of fields for many years, whereas petroleum gas produced with oil was viewed to be useless and accordingly called associated gas. Hundreds of flares used to burn associated gas in the fields emitting large amounts of noxious substances into the atmosphere. Recent years changed the attitude to associated petroleum gas, production of which is now considered as an important and profitable line of the oil business. Today, gas is an equally important companion of oil with a solid part in the fuel and energy balance of the country.

The Gas Program of TNK-BP is aimed at extinguishing flares in fields for improving the environmental situation in regions and making highly efficient commercial use of associated gas. Utilization of associated petroleum gas will be raised up to 95% by 2011.

Last year, TNK-BP facilities in the Orenburg Region produced and sold approximately 1.34 billion cubic meters of gas and utilized more than 1.4 cubic meters of products related to production of associated petroleum gas. A gas compressor was commissioned and put into operation in the Kurmanaevka settlement in 2007, and a gas pipeline between Kurmanaevka and Bobrovka was constructed and launched. The flares were extinguished, and gas that used to be burned in the flares of the Kurmanaevka and Skvortsovo fields is now being transported for further treatment and utilization.

In 2007, TNK-BP reconstructed and upgraded the compressor station in the Pokrovskoe field, one of the oldest fields in the region. As a part of a large-scale project, the Pokrovskoe compression station will be turned into a mini gas processing plant in the near future. This year, the company is going to put into operation six more gas compressor stations, first of all, a compressor station in Rostoshi. Works are being performed according to the schedule, and commissioning of gas compressor stations will start in July 2008. Flares will be put out in Rostoshi, Pasmurovo, Tananyk, Gerasimovka, and other areas.

The Zaikinsk gas processing plant is now capable of receiving up to 1,6 billion cubic meters of gas annually from the area recently purchased by the company in the Saratov Region. Reconstruction and upgrade of this processing plant, which is currently underway, will raise its processing capacity up to 2,2 billion cubic meters.

2007 was a year of highly efficient utilization of associated petroleum gas. The Zaikinsk gas processing plant started to turn out final products of associated gas processing. Production, transportation and sales of associated petroleum gas created about a hundred new jobs in the region.