Vasily Poduyk, Head, Department of Gas, Gas Condensate and Oil Production, Gazprom, held a meeting on 21 and 22 April, 2004, in Ukhta, on “Gas Condensate Deposits Development Status and Advanced Methods of Condensate Stratums Production Increase. Results of Large-scale Research and Industrial Experiment at Vuktilskoye Oil and Gas Condensate Field.” Gazprom administration experts, affiliate production and scientific research companies’ representatives took part in the meeting.

Results of research and industrial experiment aimed at improvement of production volumes of liquid hydrocarbons at Vuktilskoye oil and gas condensate field were reported at the meeting. The meeting’s participants discussed the theoretical foundation of the newly implemented production method and its anticipated results.

This technology implementation at industrial scale demonstrated its technological and economic efficiency, including:

• stratum pressure level deceleration and production wells’ capacity enhancement;
• additional production of stratum’s precipitated “retrograde” gas condensate;
• extension of operation of gas infrastructure;
• long term feedstock supply for Sosnogorsk gas treatment plant;
• assurance of employment and viability of Vuktil and Sosnogorsk towns.

The meeting participants expressed an unequivocal opinion that the experience gained at Vuktilskoye oil and gas condensate field was of great overall importance for Russia’s natural gas industry. In the course of the experiment, a scientifically proved and field test’s reaffirmed basis for condensate production improvement in developing lower Cretaceous and Achimov deposits in the north of West Siberia has been created.

The decision to further extend field experiment at Vuktilskoye deposit, and to study the possibility of utilizing similar methods at other Gazprom deposits, was adopted.

Reference:

Vuktilskoye deposit development commenced in 1968. Despite initial high condensate gas saturation, the exhaustion development was used. Currently the deposit is at the final stage of operation. Severgazprom holds the development license.

In case the exhaustion development is continued, production run of Vuktilskoye deposit would end in 2015. In that case a substantial amount of valuable chemical feedstock would remain non-recovered in the so-called form of liquid “retrograde” gas condensate. As a result, Sosnogorsk gas treatment plant, the oldest in the industry, would practically be cut off feedstock supply.

In order to improve production of liquid hydrocarbons at the final stages of deposit development, scientific research was initiated more than 20 years ago, followed by industrial tests at Vuktilskoye oil and gas deposit. These tests represented injection of dry Tumen gas into production stratum directly from the trunk gas pipeline running through the deposit from West Siberia. This particular method has never been used before in the world. Several stages of this project were implemented successively, and each stage precluded expanding field tests.

Scientific validation and follow up of field tests, and testing technology development were and still are conducted by VNIIGAZ and its branch, Severnipigaz, with Severgazprom experts’ direct participation. The project supervisor is Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Dr. (Engineering), Professor Rudolph Ter-Sarkisov, who is currently General Director, VNIIGAZ.

In 1998, the Vuktilskoye deposit development Technological setup was adopted. According to it, the deposit serves as a damper-storage, with Tumen gas injected into it in industrial quantities. Besides, the Integrated Program of Vuktilskoye oil and gas condensate deposit status conversion to damper-storage facility in 1999-2005 was adopted.

In the course of the project implementation, several gas treatment facilities has already been renovated, field pilot injection facilities were constructed, the methodology of, and the up-to-date automated telemetric gas injection deposit development’s control system itself, were designed and set up. The information on technological schedules and production wells research results is obtained at the field, and then is electronically transferred to the project developers for summary and analysis.

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