Our Arctic Neighbors: Total proud of Russia far north achievements

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Total is committed to long-term work in Russia, Pierre Nerguararian, the head of Total E&P Russia, told the Murmansk International Economic Forum Oct. 15. The French company is involved in three projects in Russia, the Kharyaga oil field in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea and the Termokarstovoye gas and condensate field in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

“A key word is partnership, partnership with Russian companies,” Nerguararian said. “Of course we have partnership with Gazprom, Novatek, and in the past we had a relationship with Tatneft. We always try to maximize the local content. This is very important, to work with Russian contractors, and that’s what we are doing in Kharyaga, and we try for our operation to develop this to a very high level and we reached 70 percent.”

On Oct. 2 Total celebrated 10 years of production at Kharyaga, which is a production sharing agreement with Total owning 50 percent, StatoilHydro owning 40 percent and Nenets Oil Co. owning 10 percent. “Ten years of production above the polar circle is something. … It was a very challenging project with very severe weather conditions — minus 45, minus 50 in winter sometimes — so very difficult logistics,” Nerguararian said.

Total is now launching a new phase of Kharyaga to increase production and stop gas flaring on-site, something that the company is trying to do in all its fields across the world, Nerguararian added.

—Sarah Hurst