Severneftegazprom Produces Five Bilion Cubic Metres of Turonian Gas
Severneftegazprom, a joint venture of Wintershall Dea, Gazprom, and OMV, is successfully advancing the development of the hard-to-recover Turonian deposits of the Yuzhno-Russkoye oil, gas and condensate field in Western Siberia. In April 2021, the company reached an important milestone: five billion cubic metres of Turonian gas produced since the first production wells were commissioned in 2011.
Severneftegazprom is the first company in Russia to develop the Turonian layers. Due to the low permeability of these deposits, their development requires innovative solutions and state-of the-art technological methods tailored specifically to the task. In 2019, the first Turonian well clusters came on stream in the scope of the full field development phase. “Developing complex geological formations and jointly looking for innovative solutions is the distinctive attribute of Wintershall Dea’s projects in Russia and a crucial trait of our long-standing and successful partnership with Gazprom. The expansion of the Turonian gas production by Severneftegazprom at the Yuzhno-Russkoye field is a prime example of that,” says Thilo Wieland, Member of the Board of Wintershall Dea responsible for Russia.
Severneftegazprom has put significant effort into fundamental research and innovative engineering work to develop its own method for Turonian drilling. In February 2021, the Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent) officially recognised the value of the technique and issued a patent certificate to the company. „The new patent is a novel combination of different methods and technologies — a solution tailored to the unique challenge that the Severneftegazprom team has taken upon itself to tackle. It has already been deployed in production and has proved its efficacy. Constantly opening up new vistas and finding unconventional solutions — this is how Severneftegazprom has earned its reputation as one of the pioneers of the Russian gas industry,” says Torsten Murin, Managing Director of Wintershall Dea Russia.
The Yuzhno-Russkoye field is one of the largest assets in Wintershall Dea‘s portfolio in terms of production. By providing the resource base for the Nord Stream pipeline, the project makes a significant contribution to European energy security.
At the moment, Severneftegazprom is producing hydrocarbons from the Cenomanian and Turonian strata, whereby the main part of production currently relies on the 138 wells of the Cenomanian layer. So far, over 320 billion cubic metres of natural gas have been produced since the project was commissioned in 2007.
The innovative spirit of Severneftegazprom is not limited to the development of complex geological formations: the project partners are currently implementing artificial intelligence solutions in the Digital Twin project, which encompasses a dynamic digital copy of the reservoirs and surface facilities designed to enhance the efficiency of gas production from the Cenomanian and Turonian deposits. For Wintershall Dea, this is the third Digital Twin project in its portfolio, following Mittelplate and Brage, two offshore oil production platforms in the German and Norwegian sections of the North Sea, respectively.
