The most important and salient aspect of the geologists’ work is support for oil production. According to Nikolai Koryagin, Geology Section Director at the Sorochinskneft NGDU, the enterprise has been doing fine in this respect: “Despite the economic crisis 2009 was a successful year. Oil production was 9.165 mil tons, 57 production wells were commissioned, sidetracking was done on 26 existing wells, 499 wellwork actions were performed. Incremental production from well drilling and wellwork amounted to almost 2 million tons of oil.”
In 2009 a systematic search for oil deposits commenced on four new oil and gas exploration sites: Alisovsky, Rodnikovo-Vrezovsky, Vostochno-Tolkaevsky and Novo-Malakhovsky with the total area of 1,129 km2. Seismic surveys were completed at these locations, seismic data is currently being evaluated and appraisal drilling is being prepared for the identified prospective oil-bearing structures.
As Mr. Koryagin noted, last year the most significant event was the discovery of the Vostochno-Kalinovskoe oil field in the Ananievsky oil and gas exploration area. The license is currently pending, an oil and gas production project at this field will commence very soon.
Nikolai Koryagin says, “The 2010 plans are stressful. They all target oil production growth up to 9.876 mil tons and commissioning of 40 production and 2 exploration wells, along with sidetracking on 28 wells and a total of 510 wellwork operations”.