No. 4, 2009

Perm’s petroleum science in the service of Russia’s oil and gas complex

PermNIPIneft is today a recognized leader in the field of developing equipment and techniques whose potential allows us to solve the most difficult problems associated with the development and engineering of oil and gas fields.

Scientific backing for the development of the "Second Baku"

Oil production has been one of the Kama region's most important industries since the discovery of the district's first oil field in 1929.

Scientific research and the West Urals' scientific schools for geology and the development of oil and gas fields got their start at the beginning of the 1930s.

The Central Scientific Research Laboratory (CSRL) was founded in 1939. The laboratory's staff was the first to use cumulative perforations in the Kama region's oil wells to raise the effectiveness of formation drilling and eliminate accidents in the wells. Methods for increasing oil output - thermal recovery and hydrochloric treatment - also began to be employed in these years.

In 1943, Perm scientists introduced directional and multiple well drilling - advanced techniques for breaking through oil-bearing formations and designing well structures - for the first time anywhere in the world. Carbonate slurries, developed at the CSRL, were also introduced for the first time.

The beginning of the 1960s was characterized by the intensive development of geological exploration in the West Urals, the discovery and development of major oil fields, and a substantial increase in the volume of oil production. The Perm Region became one of the USSR's leading oil regions in terms of the volume of oil produced.

The Perm Oil Industry Scientific Research and Design Institute (PermNIPIneft) was founded on the basis of the CSRL in 1964 to ensure the accelerated development of the fields and conduct scientific research and design work.

From 1960 through 1970, more than 50 oil fields were discovered in the Kama region. In a relatively short period of time, institute staff completed their efforts to calculate the reserves and plan the development and engineering of enormous oil fields, including the Yarino-Kamennolozhsky, the Shagrito-Gozhansky, and the Krasnoyaro-Kuedinsky fields. The development of the new fields allowed oil production to be increased to a record level of 23.6 million tons in 1976.

Between 1970 and 1980, equipment and materials developed at the institute for the glass enameling of pipes to combat deposits of paraffin were put into production. In 1976, PermNIPIneft developed and introduced a method for increasing the production of oil that was based on thermal-gas-chemical treatment of a formation's wellbore area and recognized as the most effective of all then-existing methods for increasing oil production.

The beginning of the 1980s saw the introduction of new methods developed by the institute for the application of clayless polymer salt drilling muds and the intensification of oil pretreatment through the introduction of effective demulsifiers. A high degree of effectiveness was achieved by putting the institute's new scientific developments - such as methods for using surface-active substances to increase efficiency in separating oil from water, and chemical means for preventing deposits of paraffin, asphaltines, and tars (polycardilamide compositions) - into practice at Permneft facilities.

A wide range of scientific inquiry

PermNIPIneft became part of the LUKOIL Group in 1996, and served as the Company's basic institute for carrying out scientific research and design work for LUKOIL subsidiaries located in Russia's northern and eastern oil regions.

Today, the institute staff do a wide variety of work in the areas of geology, development, drilling, production, and the pretreatment of oil and gas, along with the planning and engineering of oil and gas fields.

Developing effective strategies for finding and surveying new fields is one of the institute's most important tasks. How effective the strategies are is determined by the forecast profitability of the overall set of measures aimed at the development of oil fields. At the heart of such a forecast is the method of geological and economic assessment developed at the institute and the corresponding set of criteria for assessing the economic efficiency of hydrocarbon field development now in general use around the world.

PermNIPIneft estimates and monitors field life and reserves according to international standards. An important part of the institute's work is the auditing of reserves according to the international SPE classification scheme. A group of experts trained at Miller and Lents successfully performed an international audit of reserves for LUKOIL in 2002.

The range of work performed by the Department of Geological Modeling of PermNIPIneft includes interpreting the results of seismographic field surveys and geophysical studies of oil and gas wells, along with geologically describing deposit features and creating three-dimensional digital geological models.

PermNIPIneft has been doing hydrodynamic modeling since 1991. A great deal of experience in this field has been gathered over the years. More than 100 models have been created, along with cutting-edge world-class software: the three-dimensional, three-phase Shlumberger (Eclipse) and Roxar (Tempest-More) mathematical models.

Objects confined to terrigenous and carbonate reservoirs have been modeled with a maximum number of 744 oil wells and a minimum number of 1 - that is, experience has been gained in adapting the models to both very large and very small oil fields. The models are adjusted for each well, allowing staff to thoroughly understand the displacement processes at work in oil and gas fields and get a reasonable distribution for the remaining reserves. Three-dimensional digital geological models undergo mandatory validation at LUKOIL-PERM.

Since 2000, all efforts to calculate reserves and plan development have been made using the latest in three-dimensional modeling technology.

Between 2000 and 2007, institute staff created around 500 geological and hydrodynamic models for 70 oil fields in the Perm Region. All of the models, reserve calculations, and technological and design works were reviewed by the Federal State Commission for Mineral Reserves and the Central Commission for the Development of Hydrocarbon Resources of the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use.

The institute works continuously to improve project quality. An ISO 9001:2000-standard management system was introduced in 2007. After passing its certification audit, PermNIPIneft was issued a three-year operating license. The area of certification includes offering scientific and technical support and conducting scientific research in the fields of exploration, geology, environmental protection, oil well design, developing and engineering oil and gas fields, survey work, and on-site supervision.

From Perm to Pechora

The territory covered by PermNIPIneft's operations today includes not only all of the Perm Territory, but Western Siberia, the Republic of Komi, and the Nenets Autonomous Area as well.

A true breakthrough in petroleum science was the participation of PermNIPIneft experts in LUKOIL's northern projects, now being implemented on the territory of the Timan-Pechora oil- and gas-bearing province. It is here, under permafrost conditions, that the experience and expertise of the Perm scientists is most needed.

Between 2005 and 2007, on orders from the Company, a technological and economic study was performed, and design and working documents were drawn up for the construction of the Varandey Oil Terminal, located on the shores of the Barents Sea in the Nenets Autonomous Area, with a planned loading capacity of 12 million tons of oil per year.

As general contractor for the Varandey Oil Terminal, PermNIPIneft has worked actively with dozens of specialized domestic and foreign organizations during its tenure on the project. A number of unique design and construction solutions that have no analogue in world practice were employed in the planning phase.

The Varandey terminal consists of an onshore tank farm with a rated 325,000 m³ holding capacity, and a stationary offshore ice-resistant oil-loading jetty stationed 22 km away from shore.

The terminal's jetty is an octagonal ice-resistant tower resting on a pile foundation and having a field of protection from movable ice floes at the waterline level. The hull's inclined planes are shaped at a certain angle at their ice contact line thanks to which ice crushes under its own weight as it climbs up the vehicle's skin.

The jetty is fitted out with a system of process pipes, tanker loading equipment, an engineering infrastructure, accommodation module and a helicopter pad. The jetty is capable of loading 8,000 m³ of oil per hour, and its designed service life is 35 years.

The onshore tank farm and the offshore oil-loading jetty are connected by two underwater pipelines 820 mm across each. An auxiliary icebreaker and an ice-breaker tug will be on a round-the-clock duty in the immediate vicinity of the stationary offshore ice-resistant loading jetty. The jetty's ecological security system has three protection levels and operates in automatic mode. It guarantees 100-percent environmental safety, the Company claims, because it operates on a "zero discharge" principle which means that its production and sanitary waste is collected in special containers and taken to shore for elimination.

Systems for the marine transport of large volumes of oil under polar conditions, and infrastructure that allows the engineering of new oilfields in the Timan-Pechora oil- and gas-bearing province have been developed as a result of the project's implementation and are unlike any others. There has been a constant flow of oil through the terminal since July 9, 2008.

PermNIPIneft will celebrate its 45th birthday this year as a revamped and up-to-date scientific design organization capable of solving the most difficult problems associated with the development and engineering of oil and gas fields.

PermNIPIneft employs scientists and technicians of the highest caliber who are able to plan, study, and forecast hydrocarbon production on any of the Company's fields.

Today, when Russia has become one of the world's leading oil producers (and LUKOIL a world-class company for the production of oil and gas), one can confidently say that Perm scientists will have work to do many years to come.