Rustam Minnikhanov: Old oil regions have big potential

On September 4 Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov attended the International research and practice conference "Problems of increasing efficiency of oil field development at the advanced stage" that started today within the framework of Tatarstan Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals Forum. According to Rustam Minnikhanov, the experience of Tatarstan oil workers showed that old oil regions have big oil production potential when scientifically based approach to oil field development is applied.

Rustam Minnikhanov said that Bashkortostan and Tatarstan were the first regions that faced the problem of increasing efficiency of oil field development at the advanced stage.

Today the problem of oil field aging is as urgent as never before for Tatarstan and other regions. In general, the share of oil resources, that are hard to recover, is increasing in Russia.

Tatarstan managed not only to stop production decline and fix production level, but increased oil extraction under such conditions due to application of the latest technologies in all segments of oil industry.

According to Tatarstan President, adoption of new technologies enables increasing oil production and recovery. Rustam Minnikhanov mentioned high-viscosity (bitumen) oil as additional resource. As of today, Tatneft daily production rate of this type of oil makes 502 tonnes with 18 oil wells.
Besides, there are good opportunities to recover shale oil and Tatneft has already started research work in this area.

Advisor to Tatarstan President on subsurface resources management, professor of Kazan Federal University Renat Muslimov made a report on ways for increasing and effective using of hydrocarbon potential of Tatarstan. He stated that in 100 and 200 years old oil fields of the country would be the main ones even upon adoption of new approaches to their development.

President of the Russian Union of oil, gas and petrochemical industry workers Gennady Shmal shared his opinion on solving strategic problems of oil industry, role of the state in increasing effectiveness of oil and gas field development and reproduction of hydrocarbon resources at the advanced stage.

The experts of oil-gas industry from the United Kingdom, Hungary, Germany, Indonesia, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, USA, France and Sweden will also make their reports within the framework of the conference.