Lukoil Launches Caspian Field
Monday 31 October 2016
Lukoil has launched commercial production from its shallow-water Vladimir Filanovsky field in Russia’s sector of the Caspian Sea.
The field, with over 1 billion barrels of crude and 30 billion cubic metres of gas in contingent recoverable resources, is Russia’s biggest oil discovery in the past 25 years and Lukoil’s second field to be commissioned in the Russian Caspian.
It is now producing from two wells at a rate of 45,000 barrels per day, with construction of a third well under way, after production was formally launched by President Vladimir Putin.
Annual oil production at plateau is targeted at 47.4 million barrels of crude from the field, which has been developed using an ice-resistant fixed platform, living quarters facility, central treatment platform and riser unit, as well as onshore storage facilities and a subsea oil and gas pipeline system.
Lukoil has invested 150 billion roubles ($2.37 billion) on development of the first phase of the field, with facilities built at local yards in the Astrakhan region.
The second phase now under way will entail installaton of a new ice-resistant platform and living quarters facility, the privately-owned Russian operator said in a statement.
The field is located in a water depth of seven to 11 metres in the northern Caspian Sea, about 220 kilometres off the city of Astrakhan.