OREANDA-NEWS. The Gazprom Neft Board of Directors has reviewed information on the company’s production of associated gas and the prospects of shipping dry stripped gas to the Unified Gas Supply System up to 2030.

Gazprom Neft has been steadily increasing the quantities of associated gas it puts to good use. In particular, the completion of the first phase of the Noyabrsk Integrated Project in late 2012 and the upcoming launch of the Yuzhno-Priobskaya compressor station in 2013 are expected to raise the associated gas utilization rate to about 80 percent—nearly one and a half times the 2010 level of 55 percent.

As part of the first phase of the Noyabrsk Integrated Project, Gazprom Neft and SIBUR simultaneously expanded their respective associated gas transport and utilization capacities, which resulted in higher utilization rates. Commissioning the Yuzhno-Priobskaya compressor station in 2013 will make it possible to ship associated gas produced in the southern sector of Priobskoye field to the Yuzhno-Balyksky gas processing complex. Priobskoye oil field is being developed by Gazpromneft Khantos .

In order to reach its strategic goal of producing 100 million tons of hydrocarbons each year by 2020, Gazprom Neft is aggressively implementing new large-scale projects. An assessment of the current resource base has shown that the development of such projects, in light of the specific oil and gas condensate composition of the fields, will be accompanied by an increase in the gas component of Gazprom Neft’s production portfolio. At present, the company is considering methods of using gas from the Novoport and Messoyakha projects located in the north of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. In 2013, the company will continue to look at ways of efficiently delivering gas to the market from these fields, where commercial production is to begin within the next few years.

The Board of Directors also received a Gazprom Neft’s internal audit department’s report for 2012. The report says that the department completed 41 audit inspections in that year. The audits primarily focused on assessing the efficiency of business processes and the finances and business operations of the company’s subdivisions and enterprises. In 2012, the company paid special attention to its new large-scale projects and upstream joint ventures.