OREANDA-NEWS. Messoyakhaneftegaz, the Rosneft-Gazprom Neft joint venture, has completed construction of its first deep-strata horizontal production well at the Vostochno-Messoyakhskoye field, with initial inflow of 250 tonnes of oil per day confirming the high potential of developing the deep strata of the Messoyakha fields.

The deposits are Early Cretaceous, formed 136 million years ago, and contain lighter crude than the main reservoir under development, located 800 metres underground. The depth of the new well, with two pilot boreholes, runs to 3.3 kilometres, with a total length of 4.4 kilometres.

Following hydrodynamic and geophysical investigations (well logging), multistage hydraulic fracking of the strata will be undertaken - the first time such an operation will have been undertaken in a well of this kind at Messoyakha. The information obtained will allow a decision to be taken on the further drilling of onshore deposits in the Arctic Mainland. A further 10 deep wells are expected to be commissioned by Messoyakhaneftegaz in 2018.

The Vostochno-Messoyakhskoye field is located in the Gydan Peninsula, in the Tazovsky district of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, 340 kilometres north of Novy Urengoy. Recoverable oil and gas condensate reserves are estimated at more than 340 million tonnes. Field development is being undertaken by Messoyakhaneftegaz, jointly owned by Gazprom Neft (operator) and Rosneft. The project is being implemented with very limited access to industrial and transportation infrastructure.

Production volumes at the Vostochno-Messoyakhskoye field totalled 3.1 million tonnes of oil in 2017.