The Uzbek subsidiary of Lukoil Overseas started gas production at the end of 2011 at Dzharkuduk-Yangi Kyzylcha, largest field in the company’s Southwest Gissar block in the Kashkadarya region of southeastern Uzbekistan.
Initial stage production is projected to reach 39 bcf/year (OGJ Online, Feb. 8, 2008). The field is in the Amu Darya basin (see map, OGJ, Aug. 5, 1996, p. 19).
In reporting its yearend operating results, Lukoil Overseas said that 2011 seismic surveying and exploratory drilling led discovery of Kyzylbairak-Southeast and Shamoltegmas gas fields and identification of several prospects. The year’s work also resulted in an unspecified reserves increase above the block’s 1.4 tcf of gas and 23 million bbl of oil and condensate at the beginning of 2011.
The company matured two other prospects for drilling, and it also confirmed the presence of commercial gas volumes in the unexplored area of large Adamtash field, 50 miles north of the border with Afghanistan.
The next steps are to activate a gas processing facility and place Adamtash and Gumbulak fields on production. The $1.2 billion project to establish output of 565 MMcfd includes drilling more than 40 producing wells, building external power supply lines, a gas gathering and processing system, commercial gas pipeline, condensate pipeline, shift camp, field base, and engineering infrastructure.
In early 2011, Lukoil Overseas started production in an initial operating area in the western part of Shady field in the company’s Kandym-Khauzak-Shady-Kungrad project. The project consists of five wells making a combined 140 MMcfd of gas, production, gathering, and metering facilities, and a 21-km pipeline. Khauzak-Shady cumulative production reached 350 bcf of gas in mid-2011.
Lukoil Overseas completed a feasibility study and detailed design for integrated facilities for the Kandym group of fields. The project provides that Kuvachi-Alat field will begin operation in 2014 and Kandym field and the Kandym gas processing plant are to start up in 2016.
The company shot 2D seismic and drilled four exploratory wells in Kuvachi-Alat and Parsankul fields, making it possible to expand the fields’ design area and increase C1 reserves by 12 million tons of oil equivalent.
Alan Petzet | Chief Editor Exploration
Alan Petzet is Chief Editor-Exploration of Oil & Gas Journal in Houston. He is editor of the Weekly E&D Newsletter, emailed to OGJ subscribers, and a regular contributor to the OGJ Online subscriber website.
Petzet joined OGJ in 1981 after 13 years in the Tulsa World business-oil department. He was named OGJ Exploration Editor in 1990. A native of Tulsa, he has a BA in journalism from the University of Tulsa.
