OREANDA-NEWS. September 03, 2008. The Piltun-Astokhskoye-A (Molikpaq) platform has produced 100 million barrels of oil, reported the press-centre of Sakhalin Energy.

First oil from the Sakhalin II Project was produced in July 1999 at the Vityaz production complex. The Molikpaq platform is the key component of the complex. The Molikpaq’s oil is a light, sweet oil with its own brand name – “Vityaz”. Sakhalin Energy exports Vityaz crude oil to customers in Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand and the USA.

This month the Molikpaq team has two reasons to celebrate – it’s 10 years since the platform was installed on the Piltun-Astokhskoye field and 100 million barrels of seasonal oil have been produced since that time. It all started in 1996, when the Sakhalin II Project’s Supervisory Board approved Phase 1 of Project. The plan included the installation of the Molikpaq platform, a drilling rig based in the Beaufort Sea off Canada. Molikpaq means “big wave” in the language of the indigenous Inuit people of Alaska.

The Molikpaq’s previous home was in 15 metres deep water. Sakhalin offered different conditions - the waters of the Sakhalin shelf are 30 metres deep, so a steel “skirt” for the Molikpaq was made to raise its height, and the platform was technically upgraded. In 1998 the upgrades were completed and in autumn of the same year the platform was towed for installation on its permanent location 16 kilometres offshore in Piltun Bay.

The Molikpaq platform was the first offshore ice-class oil platform in Russia. Before the Molikpaq was installed only jack-up rigs operated on the Sakhalin Shelf. Designed for prospecting, appraisal and exploration in ice-free periods, the jack-up rigs discovered almost all of Sakhalin’s oil and gas fields.

Year-round oil production, from the Molikpaq platform, will start by the end of 2008.