Gazprom Neft, Rosneft Start Storing Gas at Arctic Field
Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft said on July 27 that its joint venture with Rosneft had put into operation an underground gas storage facility at a remote field in the Arctic, as a solution for dealing with associated petroleum gas (APG).
Russian anti-flaring law requires producers to utilise at least 95% of the APG they extract, and this presents a challenge at fields that are far removed from the national gas grid. To meet the rules at the East-Messoyakhskoye field in the Yamalo-Nenets region, Gazprom Neft and Rosneft have been storing the released gas in reservoirs at the nearby undeveloped West-Messoyakhskoye deposit.
The project includes a 1.5bn m3/yr compressor station and a 47-km pipeline between the two fields. Construction on these facilities began two years ago.
In a statement, Gazprom Neft deputy CEO for upstream operations Vadim Yakovlev said the project was the first of its kind in Russia. He said Gazprom Neft was transitioning from an oil-focused to an oil and gas-focused company, largely thanks to projects in the Arctic, estimating that the share of gas in its total output would reach 45% by 2026.
Among Russia's oil majors, Gazprom Neft made considerable progress in combating flaring last year, raising its APG utilisation rate to 89% from 78% in 2018. It aims to reach the 95% target in 2022, it said in its 2019 annual report. Rosneft's utilisation rate sits at just 77.8% and the country is the world's biggest flarer, according to the World Bank's analysis of satellite-collected data. Last year it flared 23.21bn m³.