Bashneft-Polyus, a joint venture of Bashneft and Lukoil, on Tuesday officially launched production at the Trebs and Titov fields in the Russian Nenets Autonomous Okrug. When in full swing, the two nearby fields will produce an annual total of 4,8 million tons, all of which will be exported through Lukoil`s Varandey terminal on the coast of the Pechora Sea.
“We created the necessary infrastructure and started oil production in the Nenets Autonomous District […] within a time frame that is unprecedented for such large-scale projects,” Bashneft’s President Alexander Korsik says in a press release.
However, as previously reported by BarentsObserver, the project development phase has not proceeded without major problems. In an accident in April 2012, more than 130 cubic meters of oil spilled out over a 1000 square meter tundra area.
The joint venture has so far invested more than 20 billion rubles (€450 million) in the project. When in full production, presumably in 2016, Bashneft-Polyus will have invested up to 180 billion rubles (€4 billion), the company informs. By the end of 2013, production volume at the field will be about 300,000 tons of oil. In 2014, production will increase to 900,000 tons, Oilru.com reports.
The total resource potential of the Trebs and Titov fields is estimated to 140 million tons.
With the Trebs and Titov fields connected, the Varandey terminal will increase its importance as Arctic hub for out-shipments of oil. The terminal, which has a capacity of 12 million tons per year, in 2012 exported a total of 3,14 million tons.
According to Lukoil, more than 40 kilometres of oil-gathering pipelines and about 80 kilometres of power transmission lines have been built in the project development phase. In addition comes the first stage of a Central Gathering Station (CGS) with a capacity of up to 1.5 million tons per year, a metering station, a high-pressure pipeline connecting the CGS at the Trebs oilfield and a metering station at Varandey with the total length of more than 31 kilometres, the company informs.
