On November 26, Supervisory Board of Salym Petroleum Development N.V. (SPD) approved the go ahead for a pilot project on using new technology that enables to enhance oil recovery by chemical flooding with ASP. The ASP field pilot project will be undertaken in the Salym group of fields in Western Siberia in 2013-2015.

 

ASP is a promising enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique based on injection of alkali, surfactant and polymer targeting at the residual oil that remains undeveloped after a conventional waterflood.

 

"ASP together with Bazhenov development is an important cornerstone of our strategy based on safe and efficient oil delivery. The successful ASP pilot project enables us to demonstrate the advantages of this technology in practice and show how we can change the game by developing natural resources in significantly more sustainable way", said Simon Durkin, CEO of SPD. "With changes to the fiscal approach, a full field project could be attractive to enhance oil recovery, extend fields’ life cycle and increase production ensuring benefits to the region, oil companies and the government", he added.

 

"The technology also has the advantage of being able to utilize the existing oilfield infrastructure and could be of wider use across the whole region", commented Yakov Volokitin, New Technologies Manager, SPD.

 

SPD has been studying ASP technology since 2008, conducting a number of laboratory and field tests together with its shareholders Shell and Gazprom Neft. In 2009, SPD conducted a single well chemical tracer test in West Salym and obtained very positive results that demonstrated that 90% of the residual oil saturation after waterflood was mobilized by the ASP flood.