OREANDA-NEWS. August 24, 2012. Alexander Novak, Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation, visited TATNEFT on August 21 within the frame of his working visit to the Republic of Tatarstan. During the visit, he was accompanied by Rustam Minnikhanov, President of the Republic of Tatarstan and Shafagat Takhautdinov, General Director of TATNEFT, reported the press-centre of TATNEFT.

The visit began with the facilities of NGDU "Nurlatneft", where TATNEFT is pursuing one of the strategic lines of the Company's activity: developing of the extra-viscous oil (EVO) field. Rais Khisamov, Deputy General Director - Chief Geologist, presented information to the working visit members on the status of the EVO pilot field development project implementation. According to experts' assessment Tatarstan possesses significant reserves of heavy oil, which production is high-cost, since production of extra-viscous oil is only possible with application of thermal stimulation.

Mainly for this purpose, construction of paired horizontal wells is performed: an injection well for injection of the heating agent in the form of steam, and a production one for extraction of bitumen diluted by steam. The working trip members got acquainted with the process of wells drilling with application of a Dreco slanted rig. As of today there are 14 pairs of wells drilled at Ashalchinskoye oil field plus one huff-and puff well. Drilling of the fifteenth pair of wells is underway today and construction of a production well is in progress. The plans envisage drilling of 30 pairs more of horizontal wells to involve the entire Ashalchinskoye field in the development.

Further on the delegation visited the TANECO Crude Oil Refining and Petrochemical Plants Complex, which is a strategic project of TATNEFT. In the course of the visit Alexander Novak and Rustam Minnikhanov saw the facilities under construction and already running in the operation designed for production of various fuels and refined products. First of all the guests visited the construction site of the combined hydrocracking installation, where full-scale works are deployed on the erection of process equipment. The combined hydrocracking installation is designed to process up to 2.9 million tons of vacuum gas oil per year, which will allow increasing the output of light oil products and obtaining high-quality commercial products.

The next program item of the visit to TANECO was the central control room ensuring the round-the-clock automated control and monitoring of the process parameters at the refinery. The guests saw the key facilities of the first stage of the Oil Refining and Petrochemical Plants Complex in the on-line mode at the display stand designed to display mnemonics and the production video images.

The visit program also included a visit to the Nizhnekamsk tire complex of TATNEFT, and, in particular, the factory of solid-steel core design tires. Anvar Vakhitov, Director of the factory, briefed the guests on a unique production of SSC tires. The delegation had a view of the factory's production facilities, familiarized with the main stages and production processes, assessed the level of automation and safety systems of the Company.

During the meeting held at the completion of the working visit, there was a presentation offered of the further development strategy of the TANECO Refining and Petrochemical Plants construction project. Nail Maganov, First Deputy General Director of TATNEFT, spoke about the results of the project implementation and informed them on the tasks for the future. The first stage of the Oil Refining and Petrochemical Plants Complex is operating in a stable mode and is a full-fledged enterprise of the oil refining industry, producing and delivering high quality products to consumers. Nail Maganov proposed to discuss a number of problematic issues, including the establishment of a pilot plant for crude oil processing developed by the Petrochemical Synthesis Institute n.a. A.V.Topchiev of the Russian Academy of Science, as well as commissioning of the hydrocracking installation in 2013. Ravil Ibatullin, Director of TatNIPIneft, informed the audience about the management technologies of developing depleted fields, energy saving technologies and also spoke on topical issues of development of TATNEFT's intellectual property and the effectiveness of its implementation.

Summing up results his visit to the Republic of Tatarstan, Alexander Novak, Energy Minister of the Russian Federation highly appraised the Company's activities in the area of innovative technologies application pointing out the large scale, significance and demonstrativeness of the projects being implemented at TATNEFT, and emphasized that "in in the conditions of depleted oil the fields TATNEFT achieves good results not in crude oil production only, but also in the crude oil refining and petrochemicals production".

Alexander Novak also noted the need for public support of developing extra-viscous oil fields. Among the instruments to promote this work there is a differentiated taxation approach, which will allow increasing the EVO production effectiveness.

Today, following the order of the Russian Government the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation jointly with the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation work on the methodology of taxation for extra-viscous oil production, as well as crude oil production from low-permeability reservoirs. Adoption of new statutory instruments on the basis of this methodology will allow improving the taxation legislation.