OREANDA-NEWS. January 27, 2012. A conference of the employees of TATNEFT, which summed up the Company’s activity results and fulfillment of the Collective Agreement for 2011 and outlined the tasks for the current year, was held in the city of Almetyevsk (Tatarstan), reported the press-centre of TATNEFT.

The annual event was attended by Shafagat Takhautdinov, General Director of OAO TATNEFT, Rinat Sabirov, Assistant to the President of the Republic of Tatarstan, Irina Larochkina, Deputy Minister of Energy of the Republic of Tatarstan, Tatyana Vodopyanova, Chairman of the Trade Unions Federation of the Republic of Tatarstan, senior managers and heads of the divisions and subsidiaries of the Company.

Stable crude oil and gas production with application of innovative technology concepts was one of the Company's main tasks in 2011.

Totally TATNEFT produced 25.928 million tons of crude oil in 2011 with conditioning and delivery of 25.3 million tons. Natural gas liquids production amounted to 286 thousand tons and the volume of associated petroleum gas was 790 million cubic meters.

The extra-viscous oil deposits of TATNEFT are the ground for working out effective technologies for production and processing of bitumen, which subsequently can be used in the development of similar reserves in other regions of Russia. 41.5 thousand tons of crude oil were produced from seven pairs of horizontal wells at Ashalchinskoye field with application of a steam assisted gravity drainage technology. One hundred thousandth ton since the beginning of the pilot field development was produced in November. Today, the daily production amounts to 145 tons, the maximum oil production rate of one hole has reached 44 tons per day. The plans for 2012 provide for drilling of 10 new wells and increasing oil production to 50 thousand tons as well as commissioning of a high capacity boiler for steam generation.

New technologies are successfully implemented for drilling wells. 533.3 thousand meters of rock were penetrated for TATNEFT in the territory of the Republic during the reporting year. 309 new production wells were put into operation including 4 multilateral wells with the average production rate of 12.6 tons / day.

The technology of drilling small diameter holes designed by the creative team of TATNEFT headed by the Company’s General Director proved to be efficient. The Company’s stock of the wells to date totaled 204 pieces with 63 of them constructed in 2011. The construction cost of such wells is 30 percent cheaper than conventional ones, while the average production rate reaches the production level rate of conventional wells. The idea of drilling with application of this technology was recognized the best innovative idea in a republican contest in 2011.

The technology of surface casing drilling with running and cementing previously used casing pipes prior to the arrival of the drilling crew is successfully being developed.

Further increase in efficiency is possible through improvement of drilling-in methods, increasing the average production rate as well as through reducing the time and the cost of the well construction. In 2012 the focus will be placed on expanding drilling of multilateral wells, improving the technology of sidetracking.

Decisive role in the stabilization of crude oil production is referred to application of modern enhanced oil recovery methods (EOR) and well workover technologies. Application of tertiary EOR methods resulted in production of 5.5 million tons of crude oil accounting for more than 20 percent of the Company’s total production volume.

New concepts of wells workover are successfully being developed. 320 formation hydraulic fracturing (FHF) jobs were performed during the last year with 15 of them implemented in new wells after drilling. Application of this technology was highly appraised by Rustam Minnikhanov, President of the Republic of Tatarstan, who attended the process of hydraulic fracturing in one of the wells at NGDU "Almetyevneft" in December last year.

Application of technologies using coiled tubing units is being expanded.

One of the strategic and rapidly developing technologies of the fields operation at TATNEFT is a system of dual reservoir completion and production through one well (DCP). 241 DCP installations were put into operation in 2011. The DCP systems have been installed in 980 wells at present. The accumulated oil production from them amounted to 2.861 million tons. The average growth of the crude oil production rate amounted to 3.7 tons per day.

The stock of wells equipped with chain drives is increasing. Their number has increased to 1,384 units.

An integral indicator of the Company’s development technological level is the time between failures period of the wells operation, which has been steadily increasing in recent years and still remains the highest among major oil producing companies in Russia. It exceeded the level of three years in 2011, and is 1,142 days now.

In 2011 TATNEFT started implementation of a new program "Resource Saving" calculated till 2020. The economic effect of the activities implementation amounted to more than 700 million rubles. About 30 thousand tons of standard fuel were saved.

TATNEFT is one of the leading companies in the field of IT-technologies implementation, which helps to successfully develop and improve its industrial activity. Today practically all the stages of the Company’s operation are supported by modern information systems beginning with the crew level, oil field level and finishing with corporate systems of the top management level, which are integrated into a single information space. The main task at the present stage is deeper penetration of IT-technologies in all business processes.

The project "Intelligent field" has been implemented at Block 3 of Berezovskaya area. Its development is performed with application of the most up-to-date technologies as well as innovative equipment and metering devices. Young professionals and students of the Petroleum Institute and colleges are trained here learning the basics of crude oil production and gaining practical experience.

The Company has arranged a complex energy-efficient production, collection and crude oil treatment system at Arkhangelskoye oil field. About two dozens of energy-efficient technologies allowing to reduce energy consumption in the process of crude oil production by 18-20 percent are being implemented here. Among others these technologies include dual completion/production and dual completion/injection, introduction of multi-phase pumps, injection of polymers of various modifications, use of associated petroleum gas for power generation and crude oil treatment, operation of wells using pumps with chain drives and others. Currently, a new experiment has been started at the field: segregated crude oil and water production from highly watered wells.

Implementation of TATNEFT Company’s large-scale projects in the field of petrochemicals and crude oil refining was continued in 2011. The first phase of TANECO Refineries and Petrochemical Plants Complex in Nizhnekamsk (NPiNHZ) became a full member of the Russian oil refining industry branch after receiving a license of Rostekhnadzor for operation of explosion-hazardous production facilities on December 2, 2011.

The enterprises of the petrochemical block demonstrated good performance figures last year. The tire complex produced about 11.015 million tires. Currently the works are in progress on further modernization of the "Nizhnekamskshina" factory to replace the existing line of the "KAMA" tires for modern high-performance tires.

Based on the great achievements of the Company's production activities, it is safe to say that OAO TATNEFT has retained a leading position in the industry branch structure and ensured a high level of its economic and financial stability.

The achieved operating and financial results of TATNEFT’s activity allow providing for the necessary level of social protection of the employees and implementing high corporate social standards. All the commitments contained in the Collective Agreement of the Company were fulfilled in the past year. Implementation of the voluntary insurance programs on provision of medical services and extension of sanatorium and resort treatment were continued.

The meeting approved a Collective Agreement for 2012. The conference delegates also adopted amendments to the Articles of the Trade Union of TATNEFT.