OREANDA-NEWS. Pilot testing has been completed, and preparations for full-scale commercial drilling begun at the Vostochno-Messoyakhskoye field — part of the northernmost on-shore oil and gas fields under development in Russia.

A four-year geological prospecting and appraisal programme has been conducted in the course of pilot operations at the Vostochno-Messoyakhskoye field, including completion of hydro-dynamic investigations and hydrocarbon (down-hole) logging at 12 wells, allowing the collection of key production data. This information has formed the basis for decision making on plans for full-scale production, as well as clarification on specifications for infrastructure under construction. Full-scale production drilling is expected to begin in May, in order that supplies can commence in late 2016 for a seven-million-tonnes-per-year-capacity pipeline, currently under construction, connecting the field to the main Zapolyarye-Purpe trunk pipeline network.

The final stage of geological prospecting on the project has involved the application of high-tech spectrographic acoustic bore-hole sound metering, based on recordings obtained through an acoustic sound sensor located within the well, activated on detecting any movement of liquids or gas within the strata. This method allows maximum accuracy (in comparison to similar products) in visualising the processes taking place in a horizontal well, allowing identification of those zones of greatest or least hydrocarbon inflow, and in determining whether oil or gas is entering the well at a specific point. The data obtained will, in future, allow greater efficiency in extraction, particularly by increasing oil inflows in specific areas or by isolating those areas through which gas enters the well.

The Messoyakhskoye group of fields include the Vostochno- (Eastern) and Zapadno- (Western) Messoyakhskoye acreages — the northernmost onshore fields in Russia. Licences for prospecting and development at both fields are held by Messoyakhaneftegaz, jointly and equally owned by Rosneft and Gazprom Neft. Gazprom Neft is the operator on the project.

The Messoyakha fields, first discovered in the 1980s, are located in the Gydan Peninsula, in the Tazovsky district of the Yamalo-Nenetsk Autonomous Region, 340 kilometres north of Novy Urengoy, in Russia’s Arctic zone — a region of considerably underdeveloped infrastructure. Proven C1+C2 reserves indicate 480 million tonnes of oil and gas condensate, and more than 180 billion cubic metres of natural and associated petroleum gas (APG). Pilot operations at the Vostochno-Messoyakhskoye field saw the first oil from this field produced in October 2012.

Within Gazprom Neft, preparations to bring the Messoyakhskoye fields into production are being managed by the office of Messoyakha, part of Gazpromneft Razvitiye, responsible for the management of major projects on behalf of the parent company.