The new business’s — New Oil Production Technologies LLC’s — asset portfolio includes the Savitsky and Zhuravlevsky license blocks. Each party has been allocated an equal one-third interest in the joint venture.

The partners will be sharing operational and technological competencies in finding the most effective means of developing traditional oil reserves, as well as in developing viable technologies for the commercial production of hard-to-recover hydrocarbon reserves at two blocks in the Orenburg region.

Covering an area of 900 square kilometres across the Buzulksky and Grachevsky districts of the Orenburg Oblast, the Savitsky license block is marked by a high level of geological uncertainty.

Drilling of the first prospecting and appraisal well is currently coming to an end at the Savitsky block. The full geological prospecting programme at the block includes building six prospecting and appraisal wells, with horizontal completion. The partners will be undertaking a range of geo-physical investigations, including core and fluid sampling and analysis, research and development, and non-seismic field investigations. Eight-hundred and eighty square kilometres of 3D seismic surveying has already been undertaken, in addition to this.

Covering an area of approximately 120 square kilometres, the Zhuravlevsky license block is located in the Buzulksky district of the Orenburg Oblast, and abuts the Savitsky license block. It contains the Zhuravlevskoye field, discovered in 1965 but currently mothballed. According to data in the State Register of Mineral Reserves, reserves in place stand at approximately 2.5 million tonnes of oil: hard-to-recover hydrocarbon reserves may also be present.

The geological prospecting programme at the Zhuralevsky license block, expected to run from 2020 to 2023, includes 118 square kilometres of 3D seismic, and drilling of a prospecting well in traditional reserves: a further prospecting and appraisal well, with horizontal completion, will be drilled in non-traditional reserves. A pilot development programme for this asset will be put in place once exploration activities are complete, and once reserves have been confirmed.

Pilot development of the Savitsky and Zhuravlevsky blocks is expected to start in 2024.