At the moment, according to Alexander Romanyuk, the company operates under conditions of limited and exhausted resource base, the company received more than 60 refusals for new areas. Ukrgazvydobuvannya actively operates within the existing licenses, the declared reserves of which, according to international estimates, amount to 260 BCM of blue fuel. Only brownfield operations can yield up to 16.2 BCM in 2021 with further decrease in production.
To effectively deal with this resource, according to Alexander Romanyuk, the company stepped up geological research, substantially updated the drilling rig fleet and involved international contractors Weatherford and Schlumberger for service operations.
Also, Ukrgazvydobuvannya attracts partners with the latest technologies and large work experience by entering into contracts to increase gas production at depleted fields in Western Ukraine.
Considering the existing potential for further increase in production, the company is interested in obtaining new sites, including those with deposits of tight gas, which reserves in Ukraine, according to experts, are the largest in Europe.
“Ukrgazdobycha effectively operates at depleted fields on world benchmarks, but steady increase in natural gas production is impossible at brownfields. Therefore, we actively participate in electronic auctions of the Public Service of Geology and Subsoil for new sites and in contests for entering into production sharing agreements (PSA). So, this week, Ukrgazvydobuvannya applied for participation in the contest of the Ministry of Energy for entering into production sharing agreements for 9 plots,” Alexander Romanyuk said.
At the same time, new fields can add up to 31 BCM of possible reserves to the existing Ukrgazvydobuvannya’s portfolio.
Securing the production at the level of 16 BCM annually require additional 22 BCM 2P reserves. Production “plateau” at the level of 18 BCM annually is possible with approximately 40 BCM of additional 2P reserves, Alexander Romanyuk notes. Stabilizing the annual production at the 20 BCM level can happen in 2026 provided additional 58 BCM of 2P reserves are made available.
In spite of the fact that Ukrgazvydobuvannya’s production ratio P/R is better than industrial average benchmark, without having significant new or brown fields with a level of maturity of up to 70%, Ukrgazvydobuvannya experiences a significant decline in production potential.
Currently, Ukrgazvydobuvannya involves additional resources to ensure production growth, in particular, participates in PSA contracts and involves qualified companies in the development of depleted fields under the framework of PEC contracts. At the moment, four companies have been qualified - BakerHughes GE, ExpertPetroleum, BeikenEnergy, PPC.
Ukrgazvydobuvannya uses modern technologies to unlock the production capital.
In particular, to ensure the drilling processes, 20 new top drive rigs were purchased from Bentec and Honghua. RSS + LWD - control drilling with the possibility of real time-geophysical survey – are applied.
The company successfully masters the technology of hydraulic fracturing. In particular, operations are carried out using TBock to process several production intervals with a different fracture gradient within 1 fracturing operation.
Multi-stage hydraulic fracturing is carried out in vertical wells using multi-stage layouts: 4 wells were stimulated - from 5 to 9 hydraulic fracturing intervals.
HF is conducted with SlickWater and high injection rate - for the intensification of wells with low permeability deposits.
Nano-surfactant is applied during fracturing - to improve the removal of liquid from micropores in low-permeable and tight collectors.
Microproppants (200 mesh) are used when conducting fracturing in tight collectors.
Diagnostic impingement tests (DFIT) are conducted to determine the parameters of the inoperative low-permeable collector. WellTesting equipment with three-phase separator is used during testing of wells after fracturing.
HF operations with the use of a liquid gel forming agent are conducted during the fracturing in the wells of Western Ukraine.
HF is also conducted using the TSO technology (shielding the crack to limit the growth of its length and height and maximizing the thickness of the crack in high permeable layers).
The coiled tubing technologies are applied by Ukrgazvydobuvannya for the following operations:
- Hydropasmic perforation using CT units
- Isolation of water supply by installing an insulating cement bridge
- Use of a hydraulic hammer for the destruction of obstruction in the tubing and casing
- Carrying out of purification with organoacidic and weak acid solutions
- Deep acidic treatment of layers
- Pilot implementation of on-line monitoring of the technological mode of operation of coiled tubing units in real time with fixing of parameters on the server
- Introduction of Cerberus software system (NOV CTES) for modeling of mechanical, hydraulic loads on a flexible pipe
Schlumberger’s CT technologies:
• Technology of hydro-monitor cleaning of tubes, EC and perforations JetBLASTER
• The technology of destruction of gel solutions of HF CleanFRAC
• CleanSWEEP liquid removal technology
• Technology for removing salt deposits in tubing, casing and MSR perforations
• Using the CoilCADE software to model mechanical and hydraulic loads
• At the end of 2018, an agreement was signed with Belorusneft for carrying out works on the Sidetrack drilling of 6 wells of a non-operating well fund with two drill rigs of 125t capacity.
As of May 2019, 5 wells were restored. Final well is in the Sidetrack drilling to be completed in June 2019. Recently, UGV has signed a contract with Halliburton to provide turnkey integrated services for Side Track drilling of 26 wells, with the use of three specially equipped drilling rigs (125t and 180t) with top drive. Side Track drilling is an effective technology that allows to increase oil and gas production in old fields and the recovery rate from reservoir. Sidetracking allows to return into operation wells that could not be returned to the operating fund by other methods. Through Side Track drilling, previously uninvolved sections of the reservoir are used in the development, as well as hard-to-reach stocks of oil and gas, the extraction of which previously seemed not possible. Cost of sidetrack operation is 4 times less than drilling of a new well.
Another company’s technology to increase natural gas production is the use of artificial lift.
In 2018 UGV jointly with Weatherford Ukraine launched the project of equipping wells with artificial lift systems. Plunger lift systems will use the natural energy of the well, resulting in a rather economical method of mechanized extraction with a wide range of areas and conditions of application - from lowering the level of liquid in gas wells to increasing the productivity of wells with insufficient downhole pressure.
Capillary injection systems allow to eliminate the problem of liquid discharge and deposition of solid particles, as well as maximize extraction and reduce the cost of lifting due to accurate and safe injection of reagents.
Project objectives:
• Construction of 16 pilot wells with mechanized operation systems
• Provision of additional gas extraction by reducing losses during blasting of wells and reducing the natural reduction factor of production
• Extension of the service life of the wells
• Reducing the load on the UPG due to automation of the process
• Reducing terms and improving the quality of work.
