The oil and gas sectors are currently facing exhausted deposits, announced the Ukrainian Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Yurii Boiko during a meeting in Poltava oblast. “About 60 percent of our deposits are nearly exhausted. Thus, our main task is to increase the effectiveness of gas production in them,” emphasized Boiko. There are several new technologies that will help in doing so.
The first consists of pushing the natural gas out from underground with the help of nitrogen. This will get pure gas to go into a pipe and hydrocarbon fractions (the so-called condensate) that can be converted into propane-butane, etc. This technology is being successfully used in the US and the United Arab Emirates. It will be used in two Poltava deposits, Tymofiivske and Kulchykhynske, by the end of 2011. According to Ukrhazvydobuvannia’s specialists, this could result in 130 million cubic meters of gas each year.
The next gas production technology is already being used at the Opishne gas deposit. It’s one of the oldest in Ukraine as it’s been working since 1972. According to the deputy head of the Solokhivsky oil-gas condensate production department Viktor Cherchovych, 20 out 27 billion cubic meters of the deposit have already been extracted. He says that it’s hard to get the remaining seven billion using the traditional method, when the pure natural gas displaces the mixed one. That is why they decided to use an American solution and install a separator pump unit. According to him, now there are three American Ajax separator pump units, which extract the gas from the deposit with the help of low pressure and push it into the pipe. This allows for an increase in production from 35 to 40 million cubic meters of gas and from 1 to 1.5 tons of gas condensate per year. Aside gas, says Cherchovych, the unit provides 70 to 80 percent of electricity that is released owing to the pressure difference.
Over the next two years the go-vernment is going to assign about 300 million dollars to increase gas production with the help of separator pump units in order to extract an additional 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas, claimed Boiko when asked by The Day.
The abovementioned technologies will help revive nearly exhausted deposits. Officials don’t say how many deposits there are today in Ukraine. However, what they say is self-explanatory. “Around 80 percent of gas is extracted from wells opened before 2005,” said assistant director of Ukrhazvydobuvannia Oleksii Nestorenko during the meeting in Poltava oblast. According to him, in recent years the company’s resources have deteriorated. Over the last six years they gave only one permission at an auction in 2007 for the geological exploration of a new field. The 17 deposits opened by the company in 2005-10 are considered small or very small. The initial production potential of such a deposit is estimated at 400 million cubic meters. So, in order to increase gas production, they should enlarge their resources. “To be able to do this the company has to receive 15 special permissions for the geological exploration of new fields and transfer 10 to 12 fields for the prospect drilling every year,” he added.
In order to improve the situation in gas production area till 2015 they created a special program that provides for the construction of 19 new separator pump units and the reconstruction of 6 operating ones in 2011. It requires nearly two billion hryvnias from the budget. “If this program is not executed gas production might decrease by 8 to 9 billion cubic meters,” reported Nestorenko during the meeting.
According to the former representative of the Ukrainian president for international energetic security issues Bohdan Sokolovsky, Ukraine might increase gas production even up to 23-25 billion cubic meters over five years by investing about a billion dollars. However, when increasing production we have to simultaneously decrease the amount of all the energy resources consumed by at least 20 percent by 2015.
