OREANDA-NEWS. June 29, 2012. TNK-BP announces the launch of a pilot project to increase production efficiency of hard-to-recover oil reserves in the Severo-Khokhryakovskiy field in West Siberia, reported the press-centre of TNK-BP.

The project, which TNK-BP is carrying out together with Slumberger, one of the world’s leading oilfield service firms, involves implementing a set of original technological solutions: waterflood management, horizontal drilling using multi-stage hydraulic fracturing and other advanced technologies. The Severo-Khokhryakovskiy field is characterised by tight formations with a high heterogeneity of reservoir properties (reserves are estimated to be up to 55 mln tonnes under ABC1 categorization).

When addressing the participants of the 10th Russian Oil Congress, Oleg Mikhailov, Vice President, Operations and Asset Management, TNK-BP, said: “The Company has selected 7 high-priority development sites with hard-to-recover reserves with a potential volume of 600 mln tonnes. Increasing the efficiency of the development of these resources demands a complex approach, in which new technologies play a key role. In many ways, the success of the programme depends on the execution of the pilot project, where new developments will be tested in practice, and subsequently rolled out across the entire the Company, and possibly, the entire industry. The formation of strategic partnerships with leading global companies to test new technologies, aimed at lowering and sharing development risks in the uncertain conditions of these fields’ undefined reserves, also plays an important role.”