Oil Renaissance and New Technologies
26 Sep 2005
An international trade exhibition and fair “Oil and Gas. Fuel and Energy Complex” was held in Tyumen, and TNK-BP took part in it for the first time. The Technology Business Unit of the Company, incorporating the research and technical centers operating in different regions of Company presence, presented its works aimed at the integration and adoption of new modern technologies increasing the efficiency of oil production and geological exploration. Measures such as re-entry of idle wells, improvement of reservoir management, and optimization of water-flooding patterns have already demonstrated their efficiency in the international oil industry. According to the experts of the Tyumen Oil Research Center representing the Technology Business Unit at the exhibition, these measures have a considerable potential in Russia.
Economically efficient and environmentally friendly process solutions are being implemented in the fields of West Siberia, the main producing region of TNK-BP, in the following four main directions: drilling and shifting wells to new horizons, hydraulic fracturing, reservoir pressure maintenance, and improvement of well operation modes.
The presentation of TNK-BP introduced new technologies and solutions employed by the Company for drilling and oil production and transportation and never used before in Russia and West Siberia. The presentation aroused much interests at the exhibition and included a system of integrating seismic, geophysical, drilling and sludge analysis data and allowing prediction and minimization of the risks associated with cave-ins, oil and gas eruption, emergency blowout, etc. According to O. Nagarev, Leading Expert of the Drilling Technology Department, Tyumen Oil Research Center, integration of this system will tangibly raise the level of industrial safety and environmental and soil protection.
The Tyumen Oil Research Center presented its equipment and methods at the exhibition, including an indirect-action relief valve for regulating the delivery of electric submersible pumps, protection sleeves of new design for preventing the fall of parts electric submersible pumps to the well bottom during their emergency breakdown, a displacement pump for wells of low flow rates (up to 30 m3/day), and a software package for interpreting the results of hydrodynamic studies of non-flowing wells.
One of the project documents being developed by experts of the Tyumen Oil Research Center is the technical justification of the oil recovery factor for each field of TNK-BP. Methods for maximizing the rate of development and volume of production in each specific case include the following: drilling of wells in producing areas, secondary reservoir stimulation methods, and improved hydraulic fracturing operations, in particular, multiple hydraulic fracturing in horizontal wells.
According to I. Zakirov, Director of the Tyumen Oil Research Center, all the innovations presented at the exhibition in Tyumen will be used during the industrial development of the Uvat group of fields, including the areal reservoir stimulation systems that has proved to be the most efficient method of reservoir stimulation.
Experts of the research centers of TNK-BP are now tackling the problems related to the design and development of Uvat fields and estimation of oil in-place reserves. Soon, they will start developing commercial production concepts. Advanced technologies are being contrived at this stage. The use of these efficient oil production technologies will help recover the multimillion investments into the creation of a production infrastructure that will consolidate small and dispersed fields into a united oil production complex. Expert estimates show the development of the oil-bearing fields of the Uvat Region will start in 2007.
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