This new production cluster includes five license blocks — the Zapadno-Zimny, Severo-Vaysky, Karabashsky-84 and the Srednevaysky blocks, all located in the Kondinsky district of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra, and the Yuzhno-Zimny block in the Uvatsky district of the Tyumen Oblast. These blocks together cover 5,000 square kilometres in total, with reserves initially in place (RIIP) estimated at 650 million tonnes.

The key asset — and the nexus of this new project — is the Alexander Zhagrin field.* Reserves initially in place here are estimated at 111 million tonnes of oil. Well pads, oil-gathering lines, a separation unit, an initial energy complex, power supply lines and road-transport network facilities have, already, been installed at this field, originally discovered in 2017. An oil processing facility is expected to be commissioned in 2022. Construction of the field’s (already partially functioning) oil transportation infrastructure is expected to be completed by the end of 2020. This will connect future oil treatment facilities with the Demyanskoye crude oil delivery and acceptance point (CODAP), from where hydrocarbons will subsequently feed into the Transneft trunk pipeline system.

Fifty-four production wells have been drilled at the Alexander Zhagrin field so far. That number is expected to reach 920 by 2028, with 70% of these being high-tech horizontal wells.

The Severo-Vayskoye and Srednevayskoye fields have been discovered within this new cluster, at the respectively named license blocks. The total resource potential of these two fields stands at about 81 million tonnes of liquid hydrocarbons. Initial estimates suggest total RIIP at the Yuzhno-Zimny and Karabashsky blocks could exceed 180 million tonnes of oil, with reserves at the Zapadno-Zimny block estimated at 388 million tonnes of oil.

Geological prospecting is expected to be complete by 2027 at the Severo-Vaysky, Srednevaysky and Zapadno-Zimny blocks, and by 2029 at the Yuzhno-Zimny and Karabashsky-84 blocks. The outcomes of prospecting activities will make it possible to put a development programme in place for each of the blocks in Gazprom Neft’s new oil production cluster in Western Siberia. Development of these assets will be undertaken by Gazpromneft-Khantos.