Tatneft Produced 5 Million Tonnes High-Viscosity Oil

Beginning in the 70ies of the twentieth century, the Republic of Tatarstan was and remains a scientific and practical testing ground for the country to develop technologies for production of bitumen oil. Dozens of technologies were tested over the past years and extensive experience was gained in the development of hard-to-recover reserves. This work received a new impetus in 2006, when the Company started introduction of own protected by patents of the Russian Federation development technologies at the Ashalchinskoye field.

Currently, there are 883 production wells, which are used for the production of VHO reservoirs. Daily production is more than 5,600 tonnes. It is expected that the annual oil production volume will reach the level of 1.94 million tonnes of high-viscosity oil in 2018. The past three years witnessed the implementation of a set of measures taken to increase the service life of the electrical centrifugal pumps and screw sucker-rod units used in the extraction process, which resulted in the significantly increased the mean time between failures well operation value from 266 to 852 days.

The main production technology is the steam assisted gravity drainage process with application of paired horizontal wells. Technologies of injecting solvents and thermo-gel compositions, which contribute to increasing the oil recovery and reducing the steam-oil ratio, are applied to improve the efficiency of the HVO deposits development. Currently, the implementation of the SVN-3200 project has begun, within which the plans provide for increasing the production of high-viscosity oil to the level of 3.2 million tonnes in 2020, which will require the Company to carry out a large set of technical measures, including the establishment of facilities for gas, water, heat supply to ensure high-viscosity oil production, treatment and transportation. At the same time, special attention is paid to ensuring environmental and industrial safety – the work is underway on a continuous basis to study the state of the soil, drinking water, atmospheric air, and monitor the deformation of the earth's surface.