OREANDA-NEWS. June 15, 2007. TNK-BP has presented a new oil and gas project for development of the Uvat Group of fields in the south of the Tyumen Region. In fact, the project is aimed at creation of a new oil and gas province in the region with a total reserve of 200–250 million tons and an annual production of approximately 10 million tons of oil a year. Some $2.5 billion will be invested in to the project in the nearest three years.

The Uvat fields were discovered back in 1970s, but their development was considered inexpedient at that time. Sergey Ivanov, General Director of TNK-Uvat, explained that the difficulty of development of these fields are associated, first of all, with the complex geological structure of the oil-bearing strata, their deep occurrence, and the total absence of infrastructure. The problem of infrastructure is being solved now: TNK-BP has constructed 650 km of roads here and delivered 1.1 million tons of equipment and materials, which required approximately 60,000 trips of vehicle to the region with a total distance of 10.3 million km.

Now the Uvat Group of fields includes 16 license areas. Oil is currently being produced only in the Kalchinskoe license area (approximately 1.5 million tons a year). By 2009, after the launch of two more license areas, the Urnenskoe and Ust-Tegusskoe license areas, the production of hydrocarbons in the Uvat fields may grow up to 3 million tons a year. A production peak of 10 million tons a year will be attained in 2017–2018.

“These figures do not allow for new possible discoveries and acquisitions,” said Viktor Blagoveschensky, Tyumen Business Unit Leader in TNK-BP. According to him, recently TNK-BP acquired 12 new licenses for geological explorations at the boundary of the Uvat District. “If geological explorations show commercial reserves of oil here, these license areas will be incorporated into the Uvat project and the production forecasts may be increased,” added Mr. Blagoveschensky.

An investment project for development of hard-to-recover reserves in the depleted fields of the Tyumen Region, development of hydrocarbons in the Uvat District, and integration of new technologies is now being implemented by TNK-BP in the framework of the agreement of strategic cooperation with the Tyumen Region