The Samotlor gas and oil field lies in the Nizhnevartovsk Region of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, 750 northeast of the city of Tyumen, in 15 km from the city of Nizhnevartovsk. The field covers two license areas. The companies Samotlorneftegaz and TNK-Nizhnevartovsk, incorporated into TNK-BP, produce oil in this field. The field was discovered in 1965 and put into commercial development in 1969.
The in-place oil reserves of the Samotlor field were equal to 55 billion barrels. Now, they are estimated at approximately 1 billion barrels, which means that the field is among the five largest fields in the world. The proven reserves of the field amount to approximately 4 billion barrels.
In the 40 years of commercial development of the field, 2.554 billion tons of oil was produced in it. Oil production in the field reached its peak of 158.9 million tons in 1980. At that time, the Samotlor field accounted for nearly a half of all oil production in Russia. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the oil production in the field dropped to one eighth of its peak level. Now, the production of oil in the field has stabilized at the level of approximately 30 million tons a year. The average daily production of oil in 2009 is 77,700 tons.
The annual production of oil in the Samotlor field is expected to remain at this level in the nearest five years. TNK-BP notes that this is a remarkable achievement in the conditions of natural decline of production from mature reservoirs.
TNK-BP is going to continue investing considerable sums into geological exploration works in its mature fields. The company intends to maintain the level of oil production in the Samotlor field in the years to come owing to the use of new exploration and production technologies. TNK-BP is exploring and producing oil in Western Siberia, Eastern Siberia, in the Volga-Ural region, and on Sakhalin Island.
Author: Ksenia Kochneva
