Winning Bid for the Development of West Qurna-2 field (Iraq)
A services contract was signed in Baghdad for the development and production operations at West Qurna-2, the world’s largest field. The document was signed by South Oil Company, the Iraqi national oil company, and the contractors consortium consisting of the Iraqi state-owned North Oil Company (25%), PJSC LUKOIL (56.25%), and Statoil ASA (18.75%) of Norway. The contract term is 20 years with the possibility of a five-year extension. Among other things, the field development program includes an additional seismic survey, and drilling more than five hundred wells.
Oil Reserves Discovered in the Gulf of Guinea on Ghana's Shelf The consortium consisting of LUKOIL (56.66%), U.S. Vanco (28.34%), Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, GNPC (15%), a state-owned corporation, discovers significant hydrocarbon reserves on Dzata structure of Cape Three Points Deep Water block in the Gulf of Guinea on Ghana’s shelf. The block’s area is around 5.2 thousand square km, water depth ranging from 200 to 3,000 meters. Dzata structure occurs at a 2 km depth. Dzata-1 well drilled to the depth of 4.5 thousand meters below the sea level penetrated into a hydrocarbon-saturated column with a total thickness of 94 meters containing a multi-reservoir oil accumulation with 25 meters net pay thickness. To estimate the discovered reserves and classify them as commercial, additional exploration in the structure will be conducted.
Production Commenced at Yu. Korchagin Field in the Caspian Sea
Oil production operations were launched at Yu. Korchagin field in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea. Chairman of the Russian Government Vladimir Putin took part in the official field commissioning ceremony. The field's infrastructure includes an offshore ice-resistant fixed platform with a drilling rig whose carrying capacity is 560 tons, which is able to drill 7,400 meter deep wells, and an ice-resistant fixed platform for personnel (self-sufficient for 15 days), a 28 thousand ton deadweight floating oil storage with a 25 people crew, moored to a single-buoy mooring (SBM). In its turn, the SBM is connected to an offshore production platform via a 58km long 300mm underwater pipeline.
In 2011, LUKOIL'S Varandey fixed offshore ice resistant shipping terminal (FOIRST) was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most northerly continuously operating oil terminal, namely, 69 degrees 03 minutes 11 seconds of the northern latitude.
LUKOIL Buys Back its Shares from ConocoPhillips
LUKOIL Finance Ltd. (a fully-owned LUKOIL subsidiary) signed an agreement with Springtime Holdings Ltd. (a ConocoPhillips affiliate) to purchase 64,638,729 (7.6%) PSJC LUKOIL’s ordinary shares at USD 53.25 each totaling the amount of around USD 3.442 billion. The agreement also provides for a purchase option for PJSC LUKOIL’s shares in the form of up to 98,728,900 (11.61%) depositary receipts.
Romanian Projects Joined
Acting in consortium with Vanco International of USA, LUKOIL wins the bid for exploration and development of two blocks in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea, Est Rapsodia and Trident. The blocks are located offshore in the Black Sea at the depths of 90 to 1,000 meters. The distance to the coastline is 60 to 100 kilometers, while the closest onshore settlement is the city of Sulina. The total area of the license blocks is about 2 thousand square km.
