Oil Production in Penza Region to be Increased.

On May 5 at the regional government of Penza there was held a meeting of Governor Vasily Bochkaryov and RussNeft President Mikhail Gutseriev, coming to Penza on a one-day visit. The parties discussed the activity of RussNeft’s affiliate NGDU Penzaneft OAO.  
According to the press center of the regional government Russneft is a vertically integrated oil holding company being one of the ten biggest oil and gas enterprises of this country. The company’s total recoverable reserves exceed 600 million tons. Its annual production has reached 11.5 million tons. RussNeft is engaged in producing hydrocarbon feed in the Penza region via its affiliated company called NGDU Penzaneft OAO. The OAO is developing the Verkhozimskoye and Komarovskoye oilfields. Their total recoverable reserves of commercial quality crude oil exceed 6 million tons.
The Verkhozimskoye oilfield was located in 1954 and started up in 1977. Before the start up it had been mothballed for more than 20 years. Presently the Verkhozimskoye oilfield has got essential production infrastructure including crude oil treatment unit, oil collectors’ network and other operation facilities meeting all the ecological requirements. In 2004 certain work was done at Penzaneft OAO to make a geological and hydrodynamic model of the Verkhozimskoye oilfield. In May 2004 the model of the oilfield was completed and used to get more information about geological structure of the pays and to estimate possibilities of increasing crude oil production. The Komarovskoye oil field is under pilot development. In 2004 Penzaneft produced 200 thousand tons of crude oil.
In the course of the meeting Vasily Bochkaryov and Mikhail Gutseriev agreed to coordinate their efforts aimed at explorations development to enable increase of oil production over the territory of the Penza region.