Gazprom Neft has completed construction and begun pre-commissioning works on gas-transportation infrastructure at the Eastern section of the Orenburgskoe oil and gas condensate field. A gas pipeline with a maximum throughput capacity of 5.7 billion cubic meters will ensure supplies to the Orenburgskoe gas processing plant, part of the Gazprom group of companies. Gazprom Neft subsidiary Gazpromneft-Orenburg is operator of the project.

The commissioning of the 50-kilometre 720-mm-diameter export gas pipeline will ensure the development of an effective system for using the increasing volumes of gas produced at the field. In expanding gas infrastructure at the Eastern section of the Orenburgskoe field Gazprom Neft plans, in 2017, to complete construction of a compressor station, which will make possible directing all gas produced at the Eastern section of the Orenburgskoe field to supply the gas processing plant — more than five billion cubic metres in total.

The latest — and safest — technologies have been utilised in building the new gas pipeline, with its route being laid an average five metres underground, with any above-ground crossings — via rivers, highways, railways, etc. — being undertaken through horizontal directional drilling. Thick-walled tubes made of anti-corrosive steel will ensure pipeline integrity and its long-term reliability. The entire length of the pipeline will be equipped with monitoring and control systems, with transportation processes controlled remotely.

Vadim Yakovlev, First Deputy CEO, Gazprom Neft, commented: “Gazprom Neft is currently developing several major fields at which production of oil, inevitably, involves the production of significant volumes of gas. The geological structure of the Novoportovskoye, Vostochno-Messoyakhskoye and Orenburgskoe fields demands unique technological solutions in hydrocarbon production and transportation. Thanks to the construction of cutting-edge gas infrastructure at all of these fields, the productive use of associated petroleum gas (APG) at these assets has, in the shortest possible timeframe reached 95 percent.”