OREANDA-NEWS. The technologies of high viscosity oil (HVO) production applied in PJSC TATNEFT were presented at the Government House of the Republic of Tatarstan  in the frame of an expanded meeting of Rustam Minnikhanov, President of the Republic of Tatarstan, with delegation of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhnadzor), led by Alexey Aleshin, Head of the Agency.

The event was attended by Ildar Khalikov, Prime Minister of Tatarstan, Boris Petrov, Head of the Rostekhnadzor Volga Branch, Rinat Sabirov, Assistant to President of the Republic of Tatarstan, Svetlana Radionova, Deputy Head of Rostekhnadzor, and others.

Priority investment projects in the Republic of Tatarstan oil and petrochemical industry were demonstrated to Rostekhnadzor representatives. Nail Ibragimov, First Deputy General Director for Production - Chief Engineer of PJSC TATNEFT, presented a report on the progress of the HVO production project.

As the Company’s Chief Engineer pointed out, the HVO deposits development is one of the strategic and rapidly developing areas in the activities of TATNEFT. According to various estimates, the resources of high-viscosity oil in the Republic range from 2 to 7 billion tons. The main production technology is the process of steam assisted gravity drainage.

Particular attention was given in the Company to the protection of nature and environment protection. In particular, the drilling and well production operation in the development of the HVO deposits involve environmental monitoring not only in the deposits development area, but also in nearby populated localities. Creation the necessary surface based infrastructure requires significant costs: at the level of 35% of the necessary investments.

According to Nail Ibragimov, the environmental monitoring program included three interrelated aspects: monitoring of processes occurring in the geological environment, mainly in groundwater; industrial environmental monitoring of the components, subject to possible negative effects (surface and ground water, air, soil); and research and development on environmental forecasting anthropogenic changes in the environment, while developing the deposits of HVO.

At the end of the meeting Rustam Minnikhanov and Alexei Aleshin signed an agreement on cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan and Rostechnadzor. This document provides for implementation of the federal legislation in the area of industrial safety, the safety of hydraulic engineering works in the field of energy saving and energy efficiency, as well as in the regulation of subsoil use relations.