PetroMonagas, a joint venture between TNK-BP (16.7%) and Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA (83.3%), intends to increase its heavy oil production by 20% to 145,000 bpd in 2013.
This asset’s long-term development strategy envisions further production growth: a project team will be formed this year to explore opportunities to raise PetroMonagas output to 200,000 bpd through major projects to debottleneck the Central Processing Facility (CPF) and the heavy crude oil Upgrader.
The 185 sq. km PetroMonagas block is located in the eastern part of the prolific Orinoco extra heavy oil belt (Faja), which lies on the northern side of the Orinoco River. The company may produce a total of more than 1 bn barrels of oil from 2012 until its license expires in March 2033.
According to TNK-BP Vice President, International Projects and Exploration, Chris Einchcomb, PetroMonagas is a fully integrated Upstream and Downstream project and looks very promising because of long-term potential, less uncertainty, and fewer risks. “Heavy crude production projects in Venezuela will enable us to capture the entire value chain in extra-heavy crude exploration and production, upgrading, and marketing of the resulting commercial oil stream,” he said in his interview for the corporate Innovator magazine.
Information for editors:
JV PetrpMonagas is an integrated project that encompasses production of heavy crude oil and its conversion into lighter synthetic crude for export (8.1 °API heavy crude converted into 16 °API syncrude).
TNK-BP is Russia's third largest oil company and is parity-owned by BP and AAR (a consortium of Alfa Group, Access Industries, and Renova). TNK-BP also owns ca. 50% of Slavneft, a Russian oil and gas company. ТNК-ВР contributes close to 16% to Russia’s oil production (includes TNK-BP’s share in Slavneft). The Company’s total proved SEC LOF (life-of-field) reserves amounted to 8.794 billion boe as of December 31, 2010.
In October 2010, TNK-BP and BP announced they had reached an accord for TNK-BP to acquire BP’s production, pipeline, and power generation assets in Vietnam and Venezuela for a total of US$1.8 bn. The companies closed the deal on Venezuelan acquisition in June 2011 and formally received the investment license to operate Block 06.1 in Vietnam in October 2011. In Venezuela, TNK-BP acquired BP’s 16.7% stake in PetroMonagas SA, a heavy crude producer, along with 40% in Petroperija SA, operator of the DZO field, and 26.7% in Boquerón SA. These assets are operated as joint ventures with PVDSA, and their combined output was on the order of 25,000 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2011.
Unless the context requires otherwise, “TNK-BP” or “Group” shall mean “TNK-BP International and consolidated subsidiaries of the Company.”
