As at 31 December 2016 total proved and probable hydrocarbon reserves (proved + probable — 2P,* based on SPE-PRMS international standards**, including those held by joint enterprises) at Gazprom Neft totalled 2.72 billion tonnes of oil equivalent — a year-on-year increase of 0.8 percent. Production volumes in 2016, at 86.2 million tonnes, were compensated by reserves replacement in the order of 122 percent.
Drilling of 22 exploratory wells was completed during this accounting period (the same volume as in 2015), with drilling meterage increasing by 3.2 percent in 2016, to 66,946 metres. Gazprom Neft’s reserves-to-production ratio in terms of proven hydrocarbon reserves (SPE-PRMS standards) is 18 years, on the basis of auditing by independent international consulting company DeGolyer and MacNaughton.
A key factor facilitating this increase in the company’s resource base has been the use of cutting-edge technologies in production drilling, and more effective planning in geological prospecting works. Three new fields and 26 hydrocarbon reserves were discovered on the licenced blocks of the Gazprom Neft group in 2016.
Vadim Yakovlev, First Deputy CEO, Gazprom Neft, commented: “The presence of a high-quality, diversified resources base is a key condition for business development. The current reserves-to-production ratio allows Gazprom Neft to move forward, with confidence, to achieving the company’s strategic goals while, moreover, also addressing the tactical objective of 100-percent reserves replacement through growth in 2P reserves — the category of reserves that underpins business modelling and forward planning in field development: which is to say, forms the basis for asset development.”
* Gazprom Neft’s total reserves include allocations proportional to the company’s interests in affiliated companies (including Slavneft, Tomskneft, Salym Petroleum Development, SeverEnergia, Messoyakhaneftegaz and Northgas, as well as assets in Iraq and Venezuela), but exclude the company’s reserves arising from its interests in NIS, Serbia.
** Developed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), the SPE’s Petroleum Resources Management System (SPE-PRMS) is the most widely used reserves classification system in the world, reflecting not only the likely detection of oil and gas reserves, but also the economic viability of their recovery, with reserves classified according to three categories: 3P — proved, probable, and possible.
