Gazprom Neft began preparation on the pilot development work at the Messoyakha site in May by drilling a well that will be used for water intake purposes. In addition to the four exploratory wells, a total of three operating wells and one water well will be drilled at each of the two cluster sites at Messoyakha in 2012.
Testing of the operating wells will commence in the summer of 2012, but full-scale development of the Messoyakha group will only be possible once construction of the Zapolyar’e-Purpe pipeline, which will carry some of the oil, is completed.
The results of the drilling will enable better understanding of the geological structure of the Messoyakha group and will be used to plan further exploitation of the oil field, as well as the pilot development of new sites and infrastructure.
The group of Messoyakha fields includes the East and West Messoyakha sites. The licenses for both blocs belong to ZAO Messoyakhaneftegaz, which is jointly controlled by Gazprom Neft and TNK-BP. Gazprom Neft is the operator of the project.
The fields were discovered in the 1980s and are the most northern of the known Russian oil fields located onshore. The Messoyakha group is located on the Gydan Peninsula in the Taz region of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district, 340 kilometres north of the city of Novy Urengoy in the Arctic climate zone, in a region with undeveloped infrastructure.
Currently 53 exploration wells have been drilled in the fields of the Messoyakha group; they are located between 3 and 8 km from each other. Recoverable CI and C2 oil reserves at both fields are estimated at 620 million tons. Most of the reserves are heavy, highly viscous oil