Sakhalin-I

The Sakhalin-I (Сахалин-1) project, like its sister project Sakhalin-II, is a consortium to locate and produce oil and gas on Sakhalin Island and immediately offshore, in the Sea of Okhotsk, from three fields: Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi. [http://www.exxonmobil.co.uk/Corporate/news_publications_sakhalin.aspx "Sakhalin-1: A New Frontier"] - PennWell Custom Publishing (c/o of ExxonMobil)]

In 1996 the consortium completed a production-sharing agreement between the Sakhalin-I consortium, the Russian Federation, and the Sakhalin government. The consortium is managed and operated by Exxon Neftgas Limited (ENL).

Fields: Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi

The three fields will be developed in this order: Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun-Dagi. The total project is estimated to cost $10-12 billion US dollars, making it the largest direct investment in Russia from foreign sources. It is also estimated that nearly 13,000 jobs will be created either directly or indirectly. Approximately $2.8 billion has already been spent, making unemployment on Sakhalin Island almost non-existent and doubling the tax base for the local government. The fields are projected to yield 2.3 billion barrels (366 million m³) of oil and 17.1 trillion ft³ (484 km³) of gas.

Field development

Sakhalin I’s fields the Chayvo, Arkutun-Dagi and the Odoptu had been discovered some 20 years before by the Soviets at the time of the Production Sharing agreement in 1996. However these fields had never been properly assessed and a reevaluation of the commercial viability had to be carried. To do this, factors such as the reservoir quality, producibility and well locations had to be found. 3-D seismic is the most common way to determine much of this however shallow gas reservoirs interfered with the seismic signals and blurred the images somewhat.

Two campaigns of 3-D seismic was carried out along with a number of appraisal wells into the Arkutun-Dagi and Chayvo fields. Result were initially average from the appraisal wells with hydrocarbons being successfully tested but there was a still a large amount of uncertainty involved with the project. Fortunately in late 1998 a revaluation of the 3-D seismic data using the most advanced seismic-visualization techniques then available indicated that the hydrocarbon depth on the edge of the field could be significantly deeper than first thought. In 2000 the Chayvo 6a delineation well confirmed what was suspected, a 150 meters (500 ft) oil column. This provided the certainty that the field was commercially viable in the hostile environment with a potential to be a convert|1|Goilbbl|km3|sing=on field.

Production goal

In 2007 ExxonMobil reached its production goal of 250,000 barrels (34,000 metric tons) of oil per day. [http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/exxonmobil/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ndmConfigId=1001106&newsId=20070214005789&newsLang=en "Sakhalin-1 Project Production Goal Achieved"] - ExxonMobil - (c/o Business Wire) - February 14, 2007] In addition natural gas production for the peak winter season in 2007 has been 140 million cubic feet (3.92 million cubic meters) per day.

Consortium partners

* 30.0% - Exxon Mobil (UNITED STATES)
* 30.0% - Sakhalin Oil & Gas Development Co. Ltd. (JAPAN)
* 20.0% - ONGC Videsh Ltd. (INDIA)
* 11.5% - Sakhalinmomeftegas-Shelf (RUSSIA)
* 8.5% - RN-Astra (RUSSIA)

:Both Russian entities are Rosneft affiliates. [ [http://www.sakhalin1.ru/en/project/overview.asp Project Information Overview] - Sakhalin-1 Project Website]

Yastreb

The first rig is in place for Sakhalin-I, the Yastreb (Russian for hawk; ), is the most powerful land rig in the world. Parker Drilling Company is the operator of the 230 ft (75 m) high rig. Although the rig is land based it will drill more than 20 "extended-reach" wells five to six miles (10 km) horizontally out into the Sea of Okhotsk, and 8500 ft (2600 m) in depth. This land-based offshore drilling arrangement is needed because the Sea of Okhotsk is frozen about four months out of the year. The rig is designed to be resistant to the earthquakes that frequent the area, and operate in the -40° temperatures that can occur in the winter.

World record wells

In 2007 the project set a world record when extended-reach-drilling well Z-11 reached m to ft|11282. [ [http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/exxonmobil/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ndmConfigId=1001106&newsId=20070424006111&newsLang=en "ExxonMobil Announces Drilling of World-Record Well"] - ExxonMobil - (c/o Business Wire) - April 24, 2007] Watkins, Eric. - [http://www.mapsearch.com/news/display.html?id=319813 "ExxonMobil drills record extended-reach well at Sakhalin-1"] - "Oil & Gas Journal" - (c/o mapsearch.com) - February 11, 2008] That record was broken in early 2008 with extended-reach-drilling well Z-12 reaching m to ft|11680. Both extended-reach-drilling wells are in the Chayvo field and reach over mi to km|7. As of early 2008, the Chayvo field, contains 17 of the world's 30 longest extended-reach-drilling wells.

Pipeline

As part of the project Russia is in the process of building a 136 mile (220 km) pipeline across the Tatar Strait from Sakhalin Island to De-Kastri (Dekastri Marine Terminal) on the Russian mainland. From De-Kastri it will be loaded onto tankers for transport to East Asian markets.

ee also

*Drilling rig
*Oil platform

References

External links

* [http://www.sakhalin1.com/ Sakhalin-1 Project website]
* [http://www.parkerdrilling.com/ Parker Drilling]
* [http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/sakhalin.html Sakhalin Factsheet] - at the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration
* [http://www.murmnchanin.ru/sakhalin_1.htm Сахалин-1] (RUSSIAN)