The Prirazlomnoye oilfield is located in the south—east of the Barents Sea, 60 kilometres offshore. Recoverable reserves are in the order of 79 million tonnes. The licence to develop this field by Gazpromneft-Shelf LLC, a subsidiary of Gazprom Neft. Commercial development of the Prirazlomnoye field started in December 2013. A new oil blend, “ARCO”, was launched on the global market in April 2014.

The ice-resistant “Prirazlomnaya” offshore rig was designed and constructed in Russia specifically for development of this field, and is capable of handling all technological operations — drilling, production, storage, and processing and offloading of the finished product. The Prirazlomnaya rig is designed for use under the most extreme environmental and climatic conditions: meeting the most stringent safety requirements, it is capable of withstanding maximum ice loads.

* The Directional Difficulty Index (DDI) reflects the complexity of a well’s trajectory. The index is calculated in well-path design (well trajectory planning), in line with the well’s along-hole (AH) depth, its horizontal displacement, spatial-angle change parameters, and its true vertical depth. An index above 6.8 puts a facility in the highest complexity category — category four.