Company representative Vladimir Vovk said in a press conference on Tuesday that the development of the Dolginskoye field will be started before 2020. Vovk, leader of Gazprom’s technology department for offshore projects, described the field as “a 90 km long colon” and said that engineers still need to work on suitable solutions for platforms, wells and objects in the area, Oilru.com reports.
Exploration of the field is not yet completed and the Gazprom official said it so far is impossible to estimate field development costs.
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Vovk also criticized the Zvezdochka yard in Severodvinsk, northern Russia, for failing to complete the Arkticheskaya jack-up rig. The yard has been working on the rig for a big number of years and is far behind original time schedules. Gazprom will get the rig only in 2012, and this has delayed the exploration of fields like the Dolginskoye, Vovk confirms.
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Gazprom recently lowered the resource estimates for the Dolginskoye field from 235 million tons to between 130-140 million tons.
The Pechora Sea is among Russia’s most oil-rich waters. The first regional field in operation will be the Prirazlomnoye, where production is due to start in 2012.
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