OREANDA-NEWS. February 01, 2010. Led by Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, the Company’s delegation made a business trip to the Kemerovo Oblast today.

During the trip, the delegation visited gas well construction facilities and gas treatment units of the Kuzbass coalbed methane (CBM) project in the eastern part of the Taldinskoye field.

As part of the visit Alexander Ananenkov and Aman Tuleev, Governor of the Kemerovo Oblast held a working meeting.

The parties discussed the prospects for Gazprom’s activities in the region.

“Commercial production of CBM offers an opportunity to create in future a new production sector in the domestic fuel and energy industry. That will considerably expand Gazprom’s resource base and help achieve a significant socio-economic effect.

At the same time, arranging the comprehensive utilization of Kuzbass CBM is nowadays a top-priority task. In addition to methane utilization as a motor fuel, the task includes gas supply to industrial consumers and population of the Kemerovo Oblast, as well as gas delivery to Russia’s Unified Gas Supply System, heat and power generation facilities.

Moreover, commercial production of CBM will both improve the environmental conditions in Kuzbass and, most importantly, increase labor safety at coal mines,” underlined Alexander Ananenkov.

On his part, Aman Tuleev stressed the importance of Gazprom’s activities aimed at CBM production for the Kemerovo Oblast. He emphasized that the Oblast Administration would further provide assistance to Gazprom within the project implementation.

Background

The Kuzbass CBM resource base is estimated at 13 trillion cubic meters, which secures its large-scale production (beyond the mine fields) as a separate natural resource.

The Taldinskoye CBM field is among the first Kuzbass fields being developed. It is located in the central part of the Erunakovsky geological-economic area of the Kuznetsky basin within the Novokuznetsky and Prokopyevsky Districts of the Kemerovo Oblast 65 kilometers to the north of the city of Novokuznetsk. The field’s C1+C2 gas reserves approved by the Russian Natural Resources and Ecology Ministry in May 2009 account for 45.8 billion cubic meters.

In 2005 Gazprom established a research and testing site for the CBM production technology development in the eastern part of the Taldinskoye field. The researchers from Gazprom promgaz created Russia’s first CBM production technology there. 31 international and Russian patents were received across the entire process cycle from exploration to utilization of CBM. Two-thirds of the equipment items used during the pilot project execution were made in Russia.

In 2009 pilot operation of seven exploratory wells with the depth ranging from 600 to 1,000 meters was launched at the first pilot production area of the Taldinskoye field. Gazprom dobycha Kuznetsk, a fully-owned subsidiary of Gazprom, is the license owner.

Gazprom promgaz is Gazprom’s subsidiary and one of the Company’s leading scientific centers.