OREANDA-NEWS. March 2, 2011. An ordinary meeting of the Board of Directors of Gazprom Neft took place on 25 February in St. Petersburg, during which the company's current business activities were examined.

The Board took notice of progress made in implementing measures for Gazprom Neft's exit from the oil service business.

The decision to spin off the oil service unit from Gazprom Neft's structure was taken by the Board of Directors in March 2010. A contract for the sale of Gazprom Neft's oil service unit Muravlenkovskaya Transportnaya Kompaniya was signed in January 2011. Gazprom Neft is planning to complete the spinoff from the oil service business in full by the end of 2011.

The supply of energy to Gazprom Neft's facilities was another item on the Board's agenda.

Gazprom Neft introduced an energy efficiency programme to counter the increases in expenditure on oil production energy supply. As a result, the total cumulative economic effect for the oil production unit will amount to 900 million rubles in 2009-2011 as a result of implementing the energy-saving programme in oil production.

Gazprom Neft's own share in energy production to supply upstream operations has increased from 4% in 2009 to 19%. This increase is a result of the development of local oil deposits and the commissioning of gas turbine power stations in the Yuzhno-Priobskoye deposit.

Energy efficiency programmes within processing operations will be carried during 2011 to 2013. Through reducing energy consumption by 4.8% by 2013, the anticipated economic effect at the Omsk Refinery will amount to 146 million roubles. Upgrades at the Moscow refinery will result in a saving of 47 million roubles.

Measures for optimising energy consumption will also be carried out in the Gazprom Neft Filling Station Network, with an estimated economic effect of around 50 million roubles to be achieved in 2011 to 2013.

The Board of Directors took notice of progress made in implementing a programme to utilise associated petroleum gas (APG) and increase its efficiency. The programme covers the following three main regional projects: in the Yuzhno-Priobskoye deposit, in the Vyngapurovsky group of deposits (the Noyabrski integrated project) and in the Shinginsky, Urmansky, Archinsky, Lower and West Luginetsky deposits (the Tomsk Integrated project).

In June 2010, Gazprom Neft announced the construction of a compressor station and an APG collection system in the Yuzhno-Priobskoye deposit. This will allow for around 500 million cubic metres of gas to be sent to the South Balyksky gas processing complex per year, bringing the level of use of APG at the deposit up to 95%. The utilisation of gas at the Noyabrsky integrated project is linked to the modernisation of the Vyngapurovsky compressor station, whose capacity could reach 2.35 billion cubic metres of gas per year in 2012 after expansion. The implementation of the Tomsk integrated project is linked to APG utilisation at the Luginetsky compressor station and the planned project to build the Barabinsky gas refinery. The Noyabrsky and Tomsk projects will require a need to build additional systems for the transportation of APG.