OREANDA-NEWS. May 04, 2010. It was reported that OJSC Samotlorneftegaz (a member of the TNK-BP structure) managed to achieve a considerable reduction in the number of submersible equipment failures. While in 2008 the duration of uninterrupted operations was estimated at 468 days, last year the company managed to hit the 545—day target. This effort saved the subsidiary 20 million roubles, reported the press-centre of TNK-BP.

Failure intervals speak to the quality of equipment operations from commissioning to breakdown. The longer this period tends to be the lower are the costs incurred by the company with respect to buying new equipment to replace the faulty one as well as employing repairs and maintenance personnel.

Last year thanks to the efforts by Samotlorneftegaz oilers their pumps tended to stay in operation 77 days longer on average than one year before. Prior to that annual failure intervals continued to grow across the subsidiary at about 30—35 days on average. According toe Mikhail Antipin, head of the production section at Samotlorneftegaz, this significant growth was achieved based on several factors. Primarily, the pool of electrical centrifugal pumps (ECP) was upgraded with equipment of third and forth groups. Currently, there are five ECP groups. The first group includes the most ordinary and least protected equipment, whereas the fifth group contains equipment that is protected the most from various complicating operational factors. Until the end of 2007 approximately 80% of the entire ECP pool at Samotlorneftegaz consisted of equipment classified as first group. Considering that the Samotlor field has a broad spectrum of various complicating operational factors, such as recovery of mechanical impurities and highly corrosive environment, a decision was taken to transition to third and fourth group equipment. Currently, this type of equipment accounts for up to 80% of the ECP pool at the subsidiary.

The second category of factors contributing to greater failure intervals at Samotlorneftegaz has to do with deploying imported units. Foreign-made equipment was deliberately used on the least complicated wells. As a result, the failure interval applicable to such equipment has increased from 30—50 to 155 days.