No. 2, 2010
Olga Alexandrova
THE FIRST SIBERIAN OIL GUSHER
In the vicinity of the Western Siberian town of Uray there is a place of significance to all the oil producers of the area - the historical Sukhoy Bor complex. An attractive avenue lined with protraits of the heads and top workers of the territorial production division Urayneftegaz of LUKOIL-Western Siberia leads to the central stela of the complex, raised to commemorate a major event - the opening, in April 1960, of the first oil field in Western Siberia - the Shaymanskoye (Trekhozernoye).
The thorny path to Siberian oil
The history of the discovery and development of the world's biggest oil- and gas-bearing province in Western Siberian includes many outstanding and heroic events testifying to the thorny path taken by the pioneer geologists, oilmen and gasmen. Decades have passed since 1932, when Academician Ivan Gubkin put forward the prophetic idea of the need to conduct an organized search for oil on the eastern slopes of the Urals range. On July 4, 1945, a the Combined Commission for Oil and Gas under the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR adopted a resolution on a report presented by Merited Scientist, Prof. Mikhail Korovin "On the oil yielding prospects of Western Siberia," which stated: "The work performed over the years by the organizations of the People's Commissariat for Oil, the Committee for Geological Affairs and Transbur have established the main features of the geological structure and oil-bearing prospects of Western Siberia... The work performed there before the [Second World] War allowed the whole territory of Western Siberia to be divided into geotechtonic zones and to identify the most favorable areas for oil and gas prospecting...". The Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences called on the Government: "To revive the former geological and geophysical organizations for carrying out oil exploration and prospecting work in Western Siberia... To draw up a specific plan for oil and natural gas in Western Siberia using the results of cumulative work on oil-bearing prospects...".
To implement the program, on April 21, 1948, the Chief Administration for petroleum geology of the Ministry of Geology of the USSR signed order No. 108 "On development of geological prospecting for oil and gas in Western Siberia and urgent assistance to the Central Western Siberian oil exploration party" providing for drilling appraisal wells. On June 17, 1948, a new USSR Ministry of Geology order (No. 375) was signed approving the establishment of a year-round Western Siberian oil and gas prospecting party.
Considerable assistance in determining the main spheres of geological exploration work in the area was provided by the conference of geologists, geophysicists, and oil experts of the USSR Ministry of Geology and the USSR Academy of Sciences, held at the end of November 1950 in Novosibirsk, which considered the question of "The exploration maturity of areas in Western and Eastern Siberia, the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Far East in terms of oil- and gas-bearing prospects and exploration and prospecting activities in 1951."
Three years of persistent, hard work brought long-awaited results. On September 21, 1953, test well R-1 near the historical Siberian village of Berezovo produced a powerful open flow of natural gas, heralding the discovery of the first oil- and gas-bearing province in Western Siberia. This well was drilled, on the instructions of the geologist Alexander Bystritsky, by a team headed by drilling foreman V.N. Melnikov.
A major event at the initial stage in the geological exploration of the region was the first coordinating conference, held on November 19, 1955, of the Urals and Western Siberian branches of the USSR Academy of Sciences on coordinating plans for research work in the north of the Tyumen Region. The participants' speeches stressed that the Western Siberian oil- and gas-bearing province might become a unique one in terms of its potential, the density of the hydrocarbon reserves and the number of fields. At the end of the 1950s, a geological exploration party from the Zapsibneftegeologia trust began working in the Tyumen expanses; then the Tyumenneftgeologia trust was established, followed by the Glavtyumengeologia territorial geological administration.
The first group to reach Mulymia
In compliance with an order from the head of the Glavtyumengeologia territorial geological administration, Yury Ervye, from January 1, 1958, the Khanty-Mansi Integrated Geological Exploration Expedition was set up within it, headed by the experienced geologist I. Zhuk.
The territory of the Kondynskaya depression was identified as a geologically promising area. In the spring of 1959, not far from the village of Shaim, drilling was launched by a small team under drilling foreman Semyon Urusov (1926-1991). He was a Siberian born and bred, from the village of Gilyovka, Yalutorovsk District, Tyumen Area, Urals Region. His youth coincided with World War II, during which he fought bravely in the ranks of the Soviet Army, was awarded an order and several medals. After WWII, he worked as a driller and drilling foreman on the Zavodoukovskaya, Pokrovskaya and Shaimskaya geological expeditions.
Semyon Urusov's team was made up of just 7 men, who became true heroes of their time, fulfilled their tasks, worked towards the set goal and believed that success awaited them. Forty years later, one of the team, Ivan Shestakov, recalled: "We got off the barge almost at this place and immediately started drilling a well. There was no equipment for transporting things. What we could, we carried further. So it was decided to drill right here. We set up the rig and started drilling."
The first results were soon obtained, with the first flows of oil appearing in two of the wells drilled. The newspaper Tyumen Pravda announced this on October 4, 1959 under the title "First Tyumen oil discovered": "On September 25, at the Mulyminskaya structure, close to the village of Shaim, an oil-bearing formation was discovered at a depth of 1405 m, its daily yield, according to preliminary estimates, exceeding one ton of light oil... The area's proximity to the Urals industrial centers and the railroad opens up possibilities for rapid industrial development of the oil and gas reserves. In the near future, the Tyumen Region will become a new Soviet Baku!"
The Shaim sensation
In early 1960, the encouraging oil bearing signs of the area prompted the management of Glavtyumengeologia to organize its own Shaimskaya oil prospecting expedition, headed by the geologist Mikhail Shalavin (1908-1970). The village of Chantyrya was chosen for its base, this being the closest population center to the Sosva railroad station, through which the expedition received its material and technical supplies during the winter period.
Under the difficult Siberian winter weather conditions, the team began drilling well No. 7 and, by the end of March, had managed to reach the design depth of 1,436 m. On March 29, 1960, another core sample was taken at this depth and oil was discovered in cracks in the rock. This gave all the members of Semyon Urusov's drilling team new strength and, three weeks later, the long-awaited success came to them. The well began gushing with incredible force, literally swamping the rig. On April 25, 1960, the head of the Tyumen territorial geological administration, Yu.G. Ervye, chief geologist L.I. Rovnin, chief geophysicist V.V. Ansimov and head of the Shaimskaya expedition M.V.Shalavin sent a telegram to the Tyumen Regional Committee of the CPSU: "We hereby report that, on April 25, 1960, the first commercial oil in the Tyumen Region was obtained from well No. 7 at the Mulyminskaya site. The daily oil yield is 10-12 tons. The well has been let fill backup and further studies initiated."
The next well drilled by Semyon Urusov's team (No. 6), like the previous one (No. 7), produced yet another powerful new oil gusher. It was sunk to a depth of 1,523 m in just 18 days. The radiogram sent by expedition head Mikhail Shalavin to the head of the geological administration, Yuri Ervye, on June 21, 1960 announced: "Well R-6 gushed through a 5-inch untubed casing column through a 4-inch valve into the earth sump. The capacity of the sump was determined as 350-400 m3. After perforation of the lower part of the formation and replacement of the technical water with oil, the well gushed periodically ... yielding 350-500 tons a day. It is not possible to determine the yield precisely since the well had to be stopped twice for technical reasons. The sump is now virtually full of oil."
The two gushers at the Mulyminskaya site convincingly confirmed discovery of the Shaimskoye (Trekhozernoye) field and heralded the beginning of the Siberian oil saga, confirming that the direction of the geological search was correct. In an interview with the newspaper Tyumen Pravda on June 23, 1960, Director of the Institute for Geology and Geophysics of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician Anatoly Trofimuk, stressed: "This is the first big oil discovery in Siberia of commercial significance. Over a number of years, our prospectors have succeeded in discovering oil formations in different areas in the Asian part of the USSR, but only the Tyumen geologists and drillers have found oil of undoubted industrial potential."
The head of the Tyumen territorial geological administration, Yury Ervye, in turn noted in particular in the newspaper Tyumen Pravda the major contribution made to achieving victory by the eminent drilling foreman, Semyon Urusov, the celebrated drillmen Vladimir Shidlovsky, Alexey Raspopov, Sergey Kutalov, Vladimir Teterevnikov, assistant driller Viktor Kolmakov, senior motorman Ivan Usoltsev and mechanic Ivan Shestakov. Among those who had distinguished themselves, he also named expedition head M.V. Shalavin, site manager G.A. Makhalin, geologist G.N. Gobelko, field geophysics team leader V.A. Irbe, head of the administration's drilling department A.P. Artemyev and the administration's chief mechanical engineer K.I. Savinov.
The Shaim expedition soon became the biggest geological exploration subdivision not only in the Tyumen Region but in the entire USSR. In 1961, it moved its base to the village of Uray. In connection with the rapid increase in the work volume, the population of the village quickly increased and, on November 26, 1962, the village was assigned the status of an urban-type settlement.
Semyon Urusov's team continued sinking more wells in the Shaim region, almost annually achieving the most rapid exploration well-drilling rate in the USSR at that time. No wonder, it was awarded the title of "Best drilling team of the Ministry of Geology of the USSR." In April 1963, Semyon Urusov received the award of Hero of Socialist Labor.
In April 1964, drillers arrived from the traditional oil regions of Bashkiria and Tataria to develop the Shaimskoye (Trekhozernoye) field in Uray and, in May that year, oil from the Shaimskoye field began to be transported by river. Tanker No. 652 launched Western Siberia's first oil shipping.
In spite of all the difficulties, oil production in Western Siberia grew much faster even than planned and, in 1964, the oilmen of Siberia produced 209,000 tons of oil, instead of the planned 100,000 tons.
In the rhythm of oil five-year plans
The early 1960s were heralded by major new achievements: big new oilfields were discovered in Western Siberia in the interfluvial area between the Ob and the Irtysh Rivers - in Ust-Balyk and Megion.
In December 1963, approbation of the reserves of the first Siberian oil-bearing region proceeded successfully at the State Committee for Mineral Reserves (GKZ) of the USSR. At the same time, doubts were expressed concerning the profitability of the Tyumen oil: there were no motor or rail roads, and the main type of transport in the North was by water, but the shipping season was short. The skeptics were countered by the heads of the Tyumen Region, oil producers and scientists, who forecast an outstanding oil future for Western Siberia. First Secretary of the Tyumen Industrial Regional Committee of the CPSU A.K. Protazanov proposed to the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR that test production at the fields be launched already in 1964, using the wells sunk by the geologists, and that the oil produced be delivered by river tankers to the Omsk Refinery.
On December 4, 1963, the USSR Council of Ministers adopted a resolution "On organization of preparatory work for industrial development of the oil and gas fields and further development of geological exploration work in the Tyumen Region." In the winter of 1964, Tyumen was visited by a government commission which resolved that test production at the fields be launched in 1964. This meant specifically test production. Those who supported this idea would have to prove that the Tyumen oil could be produced quickly, cheaply and in large quantities.
Responsibility for the work was entrusted to the Tyumenneftegaz Association, set up in December 1963, with the former managing director of the Tuymazaburneft trust, A.M. Slepyan, being appointed its head.
In 1965, the Tyumenneftegaz Association became a structural unit of the newly-created Glavtyumenneftegaz, headed by the experienced administrator Viktor Muravlenko (1912-1977).
On December 11, 1969, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution "On measures to speed up development of the oil production industry in Western Siberia," in which the program goal of creating a new fuel and energy base for the USSR was set in the form of target figures for oil production for 1975 and 1980. This Communist party/Governmental document set a number of related tasks required for achieving the national economic development objective. It envisaged oil production of 100-120 million tons in Western Siberia in 1975. The task of outdoing Tataria appeared improbable, the specialists recall, since the USSR's chief oil production area (in 1956-1973), given its more favorable natural and climatic conditions, had taken 23 years to achieve production of 100 million tons of oil a year (which Tataria reached by the end of the 8th Five Year Plan), while the Siberians were supposed to achieve this figure in just five years. But tremendous resources were mobilized to fulfill the set task: human, scientific, financial and material.
The 1969 resolution appointed executing agencies for the program, the sector-wise sections of which were developed in 1970 and subsequently agreed as to the startup of main construction projects. Implementation of the program proceeded within the framework of sectoral governance and, during the first stage, this produced positive results, allowing fulfillment of the task of accelerated development of the oil and gas sector, the electricity sector, transport and the construction sector. The document envisaged that development of the oil industry in Western Siberia would be based on the latest scientific and technical achievements, use being made of the most advanced, highly efficient methods for developing fields, broad-scale automation and mechanization of all production processes.
It should be noted that, thanks to the major capital investments, new technology and qualified personnel, an unprecedented rate and scale of field development was achieved in Western Siberia. In the 1970s, oil production in the USSR doubled: in the Nizhnevartovsk district of the Tyumen Region it increased 10-fold, on Samotlor (the biggest field in the entire Soviet Union) it went up hundreds of times over. In December 1969, instead of the 100-120 million tons of oil planned for 1975, the Siberian oil producers gave the country 148 million tons and the 1980 target figure of 260 million tons was exceeded by 52 million - 312 million tons!
Today, half a century later, it is clear that the first gushers of the Shaimskoye field in 1960 launched large-scale and rapid development of the Western Siberian oil industry and, for many years, lit the bright star of Yugra oil on the economic horizon.
