Lukoil Provides Update on North Caspian Fields
Russia’s Lukoil is on schedule to begin phase one production at its Filanovsky oil field this autumn and expects to begin phase two production in late 2017. It is also keeping an eye open to developing the Kuvykina gas condensate field, one of several discoveries it made in the northern Caspian Sea.
Filanovsky’s recoverable oil resources total 128mn metric tons (mt) (935mn bbls) plus more than 41bn m³ of gas; Lukoil’s target for the field’s oil production is 6mn mt/yr (120,000 b/d).
“By late September or early October [2016] we will be ready to launch the first part of the Filanovsky field,” Lukoil-Nizhnevolzhskneft's deputy director-general Gennadii Ordenov told journalists last week.
He also detailed plans to launch the second stage of the Filanovsky development at the end of next year: “In Q1 2017 it is planned to complete construction of offshore ice-resistant stationary platform No.2 (LSP-2). The [phase two] development will begin by the end of 2017.”
The jackets for the No.2 platform were fabricated at the Galaktika shipyard in Astrakhan. Each weighs over 2,500 mt and were transported and installed in the Caspian Sea in early July. The platform’s topside is being fabricated in the Astrakhan region, as are the topside for accommodation platform for the second stage.
Lukoil moves the jackets in early July 2016 offshore prior to installation at the Filanovsky LSP-2 platform (Photo credit: Lukoil)
Filanovsky field, discovered in 2005, is the largest discovery in Russia in the past 25 years. It is in the northern Caspian Sea, 220 km from Astrakhan. Water depth in the field area ranges from 7 to 11 meters.
Lukoil has discovered eight fields on its licence areas in the Caspian Sea, six of which are large, multi-layered-ones found between 2000 and 2005 (Filanovsky, Korchagin, Sarmatskoye, Khvalynskoye, Rakushechnoye and ‘the 170 kilometer’ field).
Interfax news agency reported that ten more prospects have been identified and that 25 platforms with a combined weight of about 100,000 mt plus 1,500 km of mainly subsea pipelines would have to be built to develop the fields by 2030.
“In addition to the oil fields, the provinces also have gas condensate fields, one of which is Kuvykina field. Production on the field is planned to begin in 2026 and currently we have been working on the technical solutions for the field development,” Ordenov said. The field was discovered in 2002 and was renamed to honour the services of Yurii Stepanovich Kuvykin, one of the former chiefs of Lukoil’s geological service.
Azerbaijan desk