The Yastreb rig, which is located onshore Sakhalin, drilled horizontally under the sea of Okhotsk to a target area in the Odoptu oil reservoir over nine kilometers offshore. The extended-reach wells are the first two of seven, which will tap the reservoir at Odoptu. The field is expected to begin producing oil in the second half of 2010.
Neil Duffin, president of ExxonMobil Development Company, said: “This is yet another milestone in Sakhalin-1 Project achievements. The Sakhalin-1 project is one of the largest energy investments in Russia and is a testament to international cooperation.
“The project has applied industry-leading technology to successfully operate in a safe and environmentally responsible manner in one of the most challenging sub-arctic environments in the world, while providing important economic benefits to Russia.”
The Sakhalin-1 project includes the phased development of the Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkuntun-Dagi fields, with an estimated resource of 2.3 billion barrels of oil and 17 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The Chayvo field, which was the initial phase of the Sakhalin-1 project, began production in 2006.
Since startup, the Sakhalin-1 project has produced over 240 million barrels of oil for export. It also has been a supplier of nearly 180 billion cubic feet of natural gas to customers in Khabarovsk Krai, in far eastern Russia, to heat homes and meet energy needs. Since the start of the Sakhalin-1 project, the Russian state has received $2.6bn in royalties and its share of oil and gas, and the Sakhalin Oblast has received nearly $650m in production bonuses.
The Sakhalin-1 Consortium includes ENL (30% interest); Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development (30%); affiliates of Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil company, RN-Astra (8.5%), Sakhalinmorneftegas-Shelf (11.5%), and ONGC Videsh (20%).
