President of Russian Federation Vladimir Putin led the ceremony in a video link from Gorno-Altaysk. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and head of Rosneft Igor Sechin were present on the Sakhalin Island, press center of Rosneft informs.
A new industry record was set while drilling the first well on the field: the drilled depth was 10 825 meters, horizontal displacement - 9 517 meters, Alexander Novak said. According to him, the state-of-the-art technologies, used by the Company, allowed to implement the project.
Igor Sechin emphasized that the new field will provide annual output on the plateau of about 1,5 mln tons of oil per year in further prospective. The Northern Tip of Chayvo field contains more than 15 mln tons of oil and about 13 bln cubic meters of gas and will become a primary resource base for the Far Eastern LNG plant.
The Yastreb drilling unit is working on the field, at the moment it is drilling the second well, which length will be about 11 km. There will be a well cluster on the field, consisting of 5 wells in total.
Igor Sechin also told that on Thursday the Berkut platform, put into operation by RF President in the end of June, will start drilling the first well in the Sea of Okhotsk.
Sokol oil, produced on the Sakhalin island, is of supreme quality. It contains small amount of sulphur – 0.25% and the density of 0.825-0.829 kg per cubic meter (36.8 API degrees). That is why Sokol is more expensive than Oman or Dubai, which is an index grade for Southeast Asia.
Vladimir Putin mentioned that the technologies used on the Sakhalin Island can also be used in other production regions, including shelf of Arctic seas. RF President congratulated the workers of oil and gas industry with their professional holiday – The Day of Oil and Gas Industry Worker (celebrated on the 1st Sunday of September).
The Northern Tip of Chayvo is situated on shallow part of the Sakhalin Island’s North-Eastern shelf. The plan of its development includes reaching planned oil capacities in 2017 and gas capacities in 2027. More than 63 mln tons of oil and almost 14 bln of gas has already been produced on Rosneft’s Sakhalin shelf. Rosneft continues its large-scale work on geological exploration, overrunning volumes needed. Only in nearest 4 years the investments of Rosneft in geological exploration of Far Eastern shelf will exceed 112 bln rubles.