Gazprom Neft, Lukoil to create oil and gas JV in West Siberia

Russia's Gazprom Neft and Lukoil said Sept. 16 that they are creating a joint venture to develop an oil and gas cluster in the West Siberian Yamal-Nenets region, and are also considering further cooperation in Russia.

The joint venture will be based on Gazprom Neft subsidiary Meretoyakhaneftegaz, and contains an estimated 500Bcm of gas, and over 1 billion mt of oil, the companies said in a joint statement.

The centerpiece of the cluster will be the Tazovsky oil and gas condensate field, where operations were launched in June 2021. The field was discovered in 1962 and contains some of the largest reserves in West Siberia - 419 million mt of oil and 225Bcm of gas. Annual output is expected to peak at 1.7 million mt of oil and 8 Bcm of gas, the statement said.

The Severo-Samburgskoye and Meretoyakhinskoye fields, as well as two Zapadno-Yubileiny license areas are also set to be included in the joint venture.

Oil in in place at the Severo-Samburgskoye field is estimated at 460 million mt.

The Zapadno-Yubileiny blocks are part of the Nerutinskaya exploration zone in the Nadymsky area of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous region. Exploration work is planned for completion in 2024-2026.

A significant amount of these resources are hard-to-extract located in the Achimov formation. Achimov formation reservoirs are present across the West Siberian basin, with total resources estimated at around 60 billion mt of oil.

"The development of the fields included in the joint venture with Lukoil is an important task for the entire industry. As part of the joint venture, by combining financial and technological resources, we will work on the development of 'difficult' reserves, including oil production from the Achimov formation," Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov said, according to the statement.

Lukoil CEO Vagit Alekperov said that production and refining projects in Russia continue to be a top priority for the company.

"We are actively developing new fields in West Siberia, Timan-Pechora, the Caspian and Baltic Seas, as well as in other Russian regions. We also continue to implement deep conversion projects at our refineries in Russia," Alekperov said, according to the statement.

The joint venture is subject to corporate and regulatory approval.