ZAO Sobolinoye is preparing intensive development of the southern group of fields

The key words at the RussNeft official web site are ‘’ Russian Oil for the good of Russia”. Starting end 2004 the major oil holding has been implementing its policy in Tomsk region as well. “RussNeft” purchased several assets here, including ZAO “Sobolinoye”.

Geologic exploration – first priority

ZAO “Sobolinoye” is a worthy successor of oil and gas exploration expedition which once used to work in Tomsk region. It’s not without reason that the main part of the company’s team consist of people who used to work in those organizations. Some of them personally participated  in prospecting of the oilfields which are now being developed by the company. For example, one of the most experienced and respected Tomsk specialists, Anton Berezovsky was directly engaged in discovering of the oilfields “Sobolinoye” (1967) and Gurarinskoye (1997). In the first case he worked as the senior geologist, and in the second  - as the chief geologist of Karagasok expedition. Nowadays one may call these two oilfields the most valuable pearls in the necklace of “Sobolinoye”, for their production amounts to 235 thousand tons of oil per year, while the total production of the company equals to 277 thousand tons.
   “I thank God that I happen to work for the company which is carrying further on the work we have started”, says Anton Ivanovich..  “I can remember the times when there was nothing here but taiga and swamps, and the nearest habitable place – settlement Bolshaya Griva, Karagasok District – was more than 70 kilometers away.  Today Gurauinskoye and Sobolinoye feature modern production facilities, rotation workers live and work here, transport is working steadily – you can get here by air, by the river and by winter road.
The Department of oilfields development, where Anton  Berezovsky works, exercises control over well exploitation at all the oilfields of ZAO “Sobolinoye”. The wells differ greatly from the stratigraphic point of view and some of them are  really troublesome. For example, the wells at Sobolionoye and Gurarinskoye are considerably flooded and at Yuzhno-Tabaganskoye, where the object of development id Palaeozoic deposit, all the difficulties connected with this fact can be numbered: high reservoir temperature – up to 100C, high pressure - about 300 atmospheres, high oil viscosity. Such well stock needs permanent attention and  high professionalism of the team. The Department counts three “permanent” employees (Head of department, Vitaly Gusev, two chief geologists, Anton Berezovsky and Galina Kil) and four field geologists. Vladimir Bortsov and Alexey Demidov work whole-year and Sergey Otmakhov and Ruslan Slisev are usually called in for winter period.

  “We contact the geologists every day and every hour, by phone and by e-mail,” says Vitaly Gusev. -“They are our eyes and ears  at the oilfields Field geologists ust be able to make prompt decisions and our specialists do their work conscientiously : work at the fields is going on in accordance with the plans”.

With the advent of  “RussNeft” the activity at the oilfields of ZAO “Sobolonoye” became more lively. In March’2005  Mikhail Gorodnikov, a professional whose personal achievements in oil geology are known far beyond the limits of Tomsk region was appointed senior geologist of the company. In his new capacity Mikhail Arkadievich contributed considerably in successful development of the company. During two working years ZAO “Sobolinoye” produced more than 1 million tons of oil, assimilated more than 260 rubles of investments, drilled about 10 thousand meters of deep wells,  brought into operation shut-down wells and put into exploitation three oilfields. At present Mikhail Gorodnikov has a very definite idea about the prospects of the company.

 “Geological survey of any upstream company must be able to resolve two principal tasks – to develop the oilfields competently and to secure reserve growth”, he says. “The latter point is a specially acute one for ZAO “Sobolinoye” for at the two main oilfields there is already a tendency to decrease of production output due to exhaustion of the reserves. Therefore, to stabilize the situation, we have in the near two or three years to expanse geologic exploration and at the same time to bring into operation new oilfields, and we have six of them”.

Prospecting for new reserves

Taking into account the priority status of geologic exploration in the development of ZAO “Sobolinoye” the work of Department of geology has special importance for the company. The department counts three employees. In fact, these are three women: Head of the Departmenrt Larisa Yegorova, chief geologist Victoria Kutuzova and chief expert in licensing and subsurface use Vera Mozgolina. Only philistines may be surprised by such a team, because all professionals
are well aware of the fact that nowadays women geologists can work  as efficiently as men. On the eve of the Women’s Day the corporate newspaper of Oil and gas Company “RussNeft”  mentioned with justice that the once existing image of a geologist as a bearded man wandering through the taiga is out of date already. Nowadays up-to date methods are used for minerals searching, and the essence of a geologist’s work is knowledge and experience in analyzing of the obtained data, and physical power and stamina are not so important. The team of the department of geology at ZAO “Sobolinoye” meets the requirements perfectly.
 “During the last two years the amount of our work has grown significantly”, says Larisa Yegorova. “ In 2004 26.6 million rubles was assigned to geological exploration in comparison to 133.1 million in 2006. The amount of 2D seismic works has grown from the scratch to 550 linear kilometers.  The achieved addition to  reserves C2 equals to 1.6 million tons. As for  the plans of reserves buildup are concerned, the targets were determined in collaboration with Oil and Gas Geology Institute of Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, headed by Alexey Emilievich Kontorovich. The scientific researches made by tem served as the basis for the company’s program for the period up to the year 2010, which was later sent to the Territorial Agency for subsurface use in Tomsk Region.

Stat-fact:

According to the program of geologic exploration up to the year 2010, ZAO “Sobolinoye” is to accomplish 435 linear kilometers of seismic works 2D and 52 linear kilometers of seismic works
D3, to drill 13 wells total length of which exceeds 36 thousand linear meters, to achieve reserves C1 category increment of about 7 million tons and C2 category of about 4.5 million tons.

The program is focused on development of the Southern group of oilfields including such oilfields as Yuzhno-Tabaganskoye, Kulginskoye, Boltnoye, Solonovskoye and Smolianoye,  belonging to the so-called Yuzhno-Pudinsky area. The area is real backwoods, no infrastructure, no roads. Development of this promising territory will require huge investments. But some arrangements for “advance to the South” are already made. The administration of the company sets the geologist the task of optimization of exploration and drilling works so that to gain maximal increment of reserves at lower costs.

 “We are facing a large-scaled work, but I’m sure that the team will do it perfectly”, says General Director of ZAO “Sobolinoye” Valery Gabrielian. “Special attention will be paid to our geologists’ work, for the success of eve production process, from oil deposit prospecting to their exploitation depends on the geologists’ professionalism. The efficiency of any upstream company depends on competence, experience and knowledge of its geologists. I’m proud of the fact that the team of ZAO “Sobolinoye” possess all these merits. I’m glad to send all the geologists my compliments on the holiday and wish them joy, good health and every  success!