No. 3, 2009
Ivan Petrov
AT THE FOREFRONT OF CREATIVITY
On the 50th anniversary of the scientific research and design institute LUKOIL-VolgogradNIPImorneft
In 2009, LUKOIL-VolgogradNIPImorneft celebrates its half-century anniversary. Set up to provide scientific and design support for the search for, surveying and development of oil and gas fields in the Lower Volga area, the Institute soon became the chief scientific research institute of the country's oil industry for construction of wells under hydrosulphuric aggression conditions. Today, the Institute is a core comprehensive scientific research and design organization of LUKOIL for arranging and coordinating development of marine fields.
A weighty contribution to oil science
The Institute's background is linked organically with the main stages in the development of the oil industry in the Volgograd Region. When the SNIINGP institute was set up in 1959 on the basis of the Central Scientific and Technical Laboratory and scientific subdivisions of other enterprises, this coincided with extensive launch of oil and gas surveying in the region.
The Institute soon became a major regional center providing scientific and technical support for projects involving well-drilling, surveying, production and preparation of oil and gas for the Nizhnevolzhskneft and Saratovneftegaz oil production associations.
In the 1980s and 1990s, VolgogradNIPIneft was the only organization under the Ministry for the Oil Industry of the USSR that conducted, on a broad scale, surveying and introduction of a complex of distance (aerospace and aerographic) and geochemical methods. These methods were used to determine promising zones and local facilities for seismic surveying and depth drilling.
Since 2000, VolgogradNIPImorneft has enjoyed the status of the chief institute of the LUKOIL Group for arranging and coordinating development of marine and overseas fields.
Since its inception, the Institute has conducted active scientific research into well construction. LUKOIL-VolgogradNIPImorneft has taken the lead in this sphere. It has found successful ways to fulfill tasks connected with accelerated drilling under the difficult geological and mining conditions in the Lower Volga area, including the Caspian Depression.
LUKOIL-VolgogradNIPImorneft was the first in the country to create and introduce effective systems for developing oil reserves with gas caps using barrier flooding, full gas blowoff, simultaneous internal and perimeter flooding.
Successful use is made of field development schemes elaborated by the Institute confined to reef collectors - by opening up the reef by uncased borehole and consistent working of the reserves "from bottom to top."
The Institute's specialists have drawn up and introduced into production development designs and technological schemes for all oil and gas fields of the Lower Volga area, as well as major fields of the Caspian area, Kazakhstan and the Orenburg Region.
Technological regulations have been developed for water shutoff, well and oil-and-gas collection system operation, treatment of crude, protection of field equipment against corrosion, thermal and physicochemical methods for improving oil recovery.
Scientific and methodological fundamentals for intratubal demulsification and thermochemical desalination of oil have made possible a substantial increase in the quality of the commercial product. Within LUKOIL-Nizhnevolzhskneft, which took these on board, first quality oil now accounts for 97% of the total.
The Institute became the regional methodological center for well research equipment and technology by hydrodynamic methods, including by tubular formation testers. It is also the author of the radioactive injection survey method (RIS), which is used for identifying oil and gas collectors in formations with a complex structure of interstitial space and for exercising control over cementing of wells under difficult geological engineering conditions.
The Institute's personnel have developed and successfully implemented in practice a systemic scheme for studying core and bit cuttings. It includes lithologic and petrographic, micro-fauna and palynological studies, a standard complex for identifying the permeability and porosity of the rock, special petrophysical, physico-hydrodynamic studies, coal petrography (determination of the reflective properties of vitrinite) and analysis of formation fluids. This provides good information for calculating reserves of hydrocarbons and drawing up design documentation.
The methodology developed by the Institute's geochemists for molecular study of hydrocarbon fluids has, in complex with geological and geophysical methods, found application in assessment of the prospects for oil and gas occurrence of various types of basin in the territories of the Lower Volga, the Caspian Depression, the Eastern Pre-Caucasus and India.
The Institute supplies building sites and facilities of the oil industry with design and estimate documentation envisaging use of modern structures, materials, equipment, advanced methods for organizing and managing production, and the latest scientific and technical achievements.
Working for the future
The geological department is one of the biggest and most highly professional subdivisions of the Institute. Developments by LUKOIL-VolgogradNIPImorneft have done much to promote discovery, efficient surveying, recording and calculation of reserves of oil and gas on unique (Tengiz, Astrakhanskoye) and major (Korolevskoye, Pamyatno-Sasovskoye, Khvalynskoye, Rakushechnoye, named after Yury Korchagin, 170 km and Sarmatskoye) fields.
The Institute's geological and geophysical database for the water areas of the North and Middle Caspian and adjacent territories of Dagestan, Kalmykia, the Astrakhan Region and Kazakhstan is constantly being replenished. Working structural models have been created of the fields of LUKOIL-Nizhnevolzhskneft, LUKOIL-Volgogradneftegaz and overseas LUKOIL fields and they are regularly audited.
Technologies have been developed for building wells with horizontal and multi-hole tips. This is primarily connected with designing sea drilling. In recent years, over 30 wells have been built according to the Institute's marine projects from the Molikpaq rig on the Piltun-Astokhskoye field (Sakhalin Energy company); on the Kravtsovskoye (block D-6) in the Baltic Sea (LUKOIL-Kaliningradmorneft); on the Shirotnaya, Khvalynskaya, 170 km, Tyub-Karagan, Sarmatskaya and Rakushechnaya structures in the Caspian Sea (LUKOIL, Tyub-Karagan Operating). Projects have been implemented for drilling sea wells by the companies Megatron, Tsentrcaspneftegaz, Chernomorneftegaz and Priazovneft.
All the oil fields of the Lower Volga - in the Volgograd, Saratov and Astrakhan Regions, and in the Republic of Kalmykia - have been developed on the basis of projects drawn up by the Institute. The development methods elaborated by LUKOIL-VolgogradNIPImorneft and used at various fields have made it possible, in particular, to reach a high oil recovery level from the seams in the Volgograd Region (up to 70%).
A special place in the Institute's activities belongs to LUKOIL overseas projects - assessment of the oil reserves and forecasting of oil production at the following fields: West Qurna-2 in Iraq; Hesht in Iran; Azeri-Chirag-Gyuneshli, Zykh-Govsany and Shah-Deniz in Azerbaijan; a group of fields of the WEEM concession and Meleiya in Egypt; Karachaganak and Kumkol in Kazakhstan; the Kandymskaya and Khauzak groups in Uzbekistan. A significant achievement on the part of the Institute was compilation of the project for developing the West Qurna-2 field in Iraq.
The most remarkable work carried out by the Institute in the sphere of developing fields includes projects to develop the Astrakhanskoye gas condensate field, the oil formations of the Filippovsky horizon of the Orenburg oil and gas condensate field; the Inzyreyskoye, Toboyskoye, Tedinskoye, Varandeyskoye, and Myadseiskoye fields in the Timan-Pechora oil- and gas-bearing province; the Kravtsovskoye (D-6) on the shelf of the Baltic Sea; named after Yury Korchagin, Khvalynskoye, 170 km, Sarmatskoye, Rakushechnoye and named after Filanovsky fields on the shelf of the Caspian.
The LUKOIL-VolgogradNIPImorneft team carries out all types of design and survey work associated with development of oil, gas and gas condensate fields.
On the shelf of the Baltic Sea, a project has been successfully implemented for constructing an ice-resistant stationary platform (ISP), laying the linear part of the submarine pipeline for transporting the products from the seam to the shore and construction of facilities on land, including a complex for treating the oil and delivering it to the oil terminal. Technical solutions have been implemented that ensure a high degree of safety and zero discharge of pollutants into the sea.
Since 2002, a management quality system has been operating within the Institute's design complex that meets the requirements of the ISO 9001:2000 international standard.
The staff of the Institute have a tremendous creative potential and 45 of them have academic degrees. Over the 50 years since its inception, LUKOIL-VolgogradNIPImorneft personnel have published more than 5,000 articles on geology, development and drilling; 68 collections of scientific works have been published, plus about 100 articles, deposited manuscripts and speech topics every year.
The standard and innovativeness of the work performed in the Institute are confirmed by 470 certificates of invention.
There are now 110 young scientists and specialists under the age of 30 working successfully at the Institute. The considerable production experience of the personnel, their high scientific and engineering potential in combination with energy and scholarship of the young, the unique information base, comprehensive nature of the work performed (from assessment of the prospects of undersurveyed territories to development of fields) guarantee that the tasks facing the Institute will be fulfilled.
