Our Arctic Neighbors: Gazprom expands geological facilities

Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom has opened a new geological center that will provide assistance to projects in the Arctic, the company said in a release Feb. 26. The Research Center for Reservoir Systems and core storage facility are located in the settlement of Razvilka in Moscow Oblast, and will be part of VNIIGAZ — Gazprom’s research, development, technology and engineering affiliate.

Vlada Rusakova, the head of Gazprom’s strategic development department, noted that the company’s access to new strategic areas of gas production, including the Yamal Peninsula, Eastern Siberia, the Far East and the Arctic offshore, would demand considerable geological exploration to be followed by intensified studies of rock samples.

“The inauguration of the Research Center for Reservoir Systems will allow Gazprom to further increase the effectiveness of geological exploration, the quality of design approaches to field development and the efficiency of hydrocarbon production,” Rusakova said. “Additionally, the creation of the corporate core storage facility will make it possible to integrate the activities related to storage of formation samples extracted from wells.”

The first phase of the corporate core storage facility with a capacity of 76,000 linear meters (249,344 feet) is intended for centralized storage of Gazprom’s core material. When the second phase of the storage facility is opened, scheduled for fall 2009, total storage capacity will increase to 184,000 linear meters (603,674 feet).

—Sarah Hurst