* Twenty high-tech wells have been drilled at the Palyanovsky test-site at the Krasnoleninskoye field, and more than 250 high-volume and high-speed fracking operations undertaken. The Bazhen Technology Centre’s production programme envisages the construction of several dozen more wells, while fracking stages are expected to increase to up to 30, with the lengths of wells’ horizontal sections increasing from the current 1,200 metres to 1,500. Specialists continue to vary the composition and volumes of fracking fluids and proppant, while analysing the impact of experimental parameters on cumulative production.

The Bazhen Technology Centre — a subsidiary of Gazprom Neft — is operator on a national project, “Developing Domestic Technologies and High-technology Equipment to Develop Reserves at the Bazhenov Formation”. The project is directed at bringing together the resources of the scientific, industry and business communities, together with government, in developing profitable technologies for developing the non-traditional hydrocarbon reserves of the Bazhenov Formation. The Bazhenov Technology Centre’s production programme to develop non-traditional hydrocarbon reserves is being implemented in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.

The Bazhenov Formation comprises a group of oil-bearing rocks covering an area of approximately one million square kilometres in Western Siberia. The formation is shallow, and lies at a depth of two to three kilometres. Provisional forecasts indicate geological reserves at the Bazhenov Formation to be in the order of 18 to 60 billion tonnes. There are not, currently, any effective technologies for working with the Bazhenov formation.

Hydraulic fracking is one of the most effective means of increasing oil production at a field, and increasing oil recovery. It involves the high-pressure injection of a mixture of fluids and a special proppant agent (proppant) into oil-bearing strata, at depths of several kilometres.This operation creates cracks in the rock, allowing oil to flow into the well. The longer these fissures, the greater area of strata they cover, allowing more oil to be produced.