The Korchagin field was discovered in 2000 and commissioned on April 28th 2010. It is named after Yuri Sergeevich Korchagin, a well-known Soviet petroleum engineer and one of the forefathers of Lukoil Oil Company. The oilfield is being developed by drilling 29 horizontal wells from a single platform. Production wells will include extended-reach development (ERD) wells with horizontal sections up to 5,000 m.

The Korchagin reservoirs are quite heterogeneous, and the bubble point pressure is very close to reservoir pressure. These factors result in a high risk of water/gas breakthrough from high-permeability zones and the possibility of gas-water coning. The reservoir’s drive mechanism is a combination of gas cap and water drive.

One of the major challenges with well placement and field development is the presence of the massive active gas cap above and the underlying waterbearing reservoir where the oil-bearing zone is only 65.6 ft thick. In highly permeable formations with good vertical permeability, gas and water coning can decrease oil production from the very first days of the well. The well placement strategy was to drill a long horizontal section at a maximum distance (~15 m) from the gas cap. This was done to avoid gas breakthrough and maintain a low drawdown pressure to produce the oil. The Middle Neocom formation is penetrated by the heel of the well, and the toe of well is in the Upper Neocom formation, which is considered as the best reservoir zone (Chertenkov et al. 2012).

The Korchagin field has unique facilities, which are ice-resistant and can be operated throughout the year. Shallow water depths allow structures to be fixed to the seabed. The complex production network connects the Korchagin platform with the rest of oilfields in that region. Platform dimensions are as follows: length – 313.32 ft.; width – 236.8 ft.; height – 295.2 ft.; weight – 34 K lb.

The production/drilling facility is equipped with a drilling rig, refining plant and gas turbine power plant.

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