Natural gas at a depth of 6,300 meters has been discovered in Ukraine. The Kobzivka gas condensate deposit is probably one of the deepest active deposits in our country. It is situated in Kharkiv oblast and is under the vigilant supervision of prospectors from Ukrhazvydobuvannya, a subsidiary of Naftohaz Ukrainy. The capacities of this deposit are being actively developed today. The second gas complex preparation unit (GCPU-2) was launched a few days ago.
In early 2006 Ukrhazvydobuvannya and the research and development institute UkrNDIhaz created a program for the speedy development of this deposit, based on plans to increase the production level up to 1.5 billion cubic meters in 2007. Thirty-three productive and prospecting wells are supposed to be built (each requires 300 tons of pipes).
The work is going fast. Mykola Rozlutsky, head of the Ukrbudhaz Drilling Division, says that drilling a single well takes about four or five months. The division drills approximately 110,000 meters of wells a year. Now its experts are busy at Kobzivka deposit well no. 2. They have reached 2,200 meters with 1,100 meters remaining. “It’s only after drilling prospective wells that we can say whether there is any gas or not,” says Rozlutsky, initiating me into the secrets of his trade.
Drilling a well does not come cheaply. It depends on the difficulties of a site, and it costs between UAH 15 and 25 million. Operating a prospecting drill is no easy task either. Turner Petro Kubriy told The Day that he always has plenty of work. “Drilling units are added, and the number of accidents rises accordingly”, he says. After the proper thread is cut on a pipe, it is put down the well. Another pipe of larger diameter is screwed onto it. It looks like a kind of Christmas tree. But the gas producers will hold a party only when the prospecting well shows that gas has been found. Volodymyr Kovalyov, deputy chief of the Ukrbudhaz Gas Well Group, told The Day that existing technologies are allowing the enterprise to operate at depths of 4,000 - 6,000 meters. The cost of drilling a well ranges from UAH 3.5 to 4.5 million. Productive wells are drilled only when there is a guarantee of obtaining gas. Prospecting wells sometimes miss the target. Kobzivka uses a new generation of Russian-made equipment. Mechanical devices mean that manual operations are not used even during hoisting and lifting procedures. Special devices for the quick preparation of solution have also been also installed. Drillers call them hydrofunnels.
The Ukrbudhaz and Ukrhazvydobuvannya team (general contractor and customer) means savings. The cost of a drilling unit is two times cheaper compared to the catalogue price of UAH 23 million, because the company’s own workforce is used even for building a fence around the site. The site is not large because most of it is underground. Illya Rybchych, director general of Ukrhazvydobuvannya, told journalists that the gas complex preparation unit enables them to ensure an output of 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas from this deposit until 2008. He added that Ukrhazvydobuvannya has signed a contract to purchase equipment for drilling 6,000-meter-deep wells from Halliburton (USA). Rybchych says that in a few years they will be able to prospect up to 152 billion cubic meters of gas at the Kobzivka deposit.
According to an evaluation of the lower layers, the deposit has a capacity of about 80 billion cubic meters. Until recently, before launching the second unit, the Kobzivka deposit was producing 308,800,000 cubic meters of gas a year. Its accumulated output was 417,495,000 cubic meters, and its daily output was 191,000 cubic meters.
To accelerate the development of the deposit and implement the program of intensive gas production, Rybchych thinks “it is necessary to start drilling with the new foreign-made equipment, which drills as much as 1,000 meters a year, because now it takes us three years to drill such a well with available equipment.” Oleksandr Bolkisiev, chairman of Naftohaz Ukrainy, believes in the future of the Kobzivka deposit: four more wells will go into operation before the end of July, and nine more before the end of the year. “Next year the output of this deposit will increase up to 1 million cubic meters a day,” he said, adding that this will be enough to supply gas to Kharkiv and its heating power plants nos. 3 and 5.
Bolkisiev also mentioned that power plants are due to pay more than UAH 120 million of debts to Naftohaz for the last heating season. “If they don’t keep up with the debt repayment schedule, we will not be able to start the heating season,” Bolkisiev says, issuing a mild threat to the municipal authorities. “The same situation exists in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk. And we aren’t going to tolerate that.”
