Russia. Turonian gas production potential at the Yuzhno-Russkoye deposit makes up 5-8 billion cubic meters

The Turonian gas production potential at the Yuzhno-Russkoye deposit, according to preliminary assessment, makes up 5-8 billion cubic meters a year, is said in a newspaper by Gazprom. “This figure will be specified on the results of a pilot development of a well No174, while the reserves of the Turonian basins – on the results of further development of the licensed site,” is said in the newspaper.

3D seismic survey of 500 square kilometers volume will be carried out at the deposit this year. They plan to start exploration drilling in 2014, during which 6-8 wells construction is planned. The Yuzhno-Russkoye oil-and-gas condensate deposit in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area (the licence belongs to OAO “Severneftegazprom, a JV of Gazprom, German E.ON Ruhrgas and Wintershall) was put into industrial production in late 2007 and it reached 25 billion cubic metres of gas production a year in 2009. As it was stated before, the deposit was considered to be a major resource base for the export gas pipeline Nord Stream, mostly due to the gas resources, assessed at over 1 trillion cubic meters. Until very recently two thirds of the volume was considered to be active resources. They are Cenomanian basin, which are brought into development. A significant part of the gas reserves are associated with Turonian mines, whoseh development did not happen in our country.

Due to a number of reasons, such as low poroperm properties, permeability, gas saturation, a lack of production practice, the Turonian deposit was out of attention of the business. “Though Turonian basins were considered to be commercial, they were only figurative,” is said in the newspaper. The Turonian basins are higher than the Cenomanian ones, at the depth of about 800-850 meters. The gas here is almost identical to Cenomanian gas. The content of methane in it is about 85-95% and there is no heavy dirt. Though the beds have not been studied thoroughly, it is known that they may content huge gas beds. The resources of the Turonian gas at the Yuzhno-Russkoye deposit are assessed at minimum 300 billion cubic meters, while the Kharampurskoye deposit in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area (belongs to OOO “RN-Purneftegas”, an affiliate of Rosneft) – over 800 billion cubic meters. The Turonian resources are problematic, mainly because the openness of the gassy rocks is 10 times less than at the Cenomanian deposit. Cenomanina collector is a highly compressed sand-rock, which defines high gas recovery of the bed. Turonian deposit is also a sand-rock, but it has significant contaminant of dense rock, clays, siltstone, which reduce collecting properties of the bed, make gas flow difficult and that is why the gas flow is not significant. And its development using traditional vertical wells is unreasonable due to low debits, which do not exceed 10-18 thousand cubic meters a day – it is lower the level of profitability.

http://www.geonews.com.ua/index.cgi?a=44942

Translated by Iraida Idiyatova