OREANDA-NEWS. St Petersburg was recently host to the Fourth International Conference on Problems and Experience in Developing Hard-to-Recover Reserves in  Oil and Gas Condensate Fields, held jointly by Gazprom Neft together with the National Mineral Resources (Mining) University. Presentations on key approaches to working with hard-to-recover reserves, delivered by senior specialists from Gazprom Neft and other major companies in the industry, included new approaches to hydraulic fracking, management of non-traditional exploration and production (E&P) projects, seismic prospecting technologies, and more.

Gazprom Neft has continued implementation of previously determined strategic objectives throughout 2015. Results for the first nine months of 2015 show the company increasing hydrocarbon production by more than 22 percent year on year, to 58.76 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe). The successful deployment and dissemination of new production technologies allowed bringing 22 million tonnes of reserves into production in the first half of 2015. Gazprom Neft has brought more than 100 million tonnes of hard-to-recover reserves into production since 2011, and plans to triple this volume by 2020. The company makes full use of innovative technologies to ensure the effective development of hard-to-recover reserves, through the drilling of horizontal and multilateral wells as well as the use of multistage hydraulic fracking. High-technology wells amounted to 40 percent of the company’s total wells as at end-2014 — a market-leading performance within the Russian oil and gas sector. The company is committed to the constant improvement of skills and competencies in its use of new technologies, with multi-stage fracking operations from single wells increasing year after year — a well drilled this year by Gazpromneft-Khantos being the first of the Gazprom Neft group to generate 11 multi-stage fracking operations from a single well.

Gazprom Neft is involved in the development not just of hard-to-recover but also unconventional reserves including Russia’s extensive Bazhenov Formation: a key focus of the company’s technological strategy being the identification of the most viable options for investigating and developing hydrocarbons in this deposit.

Mars Khasanov, Head of Gazprom Neft’s Research and Development Centre, commented: “The development of hard-to-recover reserves is an issue for Russia’s entire oil and gas sector: to which end, Gazprom Neft regularly holds conferences to build on the experience gained by ourselves and our partners on various projects. We are well advanced in the application of new technologies in developing hard-to-recover reserves, but only by bringing together the efforts of oil and oilfield service companies, academic institutions and equipment producers will we be able to take operations in hard-to-recover reserves to a new level.”