Russia’s Gazprom Neft plans to restore oil drilling to pre-pandemic levels in 2022

Gazprom company logo is seen on the facade of a business center in Saint Petersburg, Russia January 26, 2022. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov

MOSCOW, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Gazprom Neft (SIBN.MM), the oil arm of Russian energy firm Gazprom, plans to restore oil drilling to pre-pandemic volumes this year thanks to new technologies, Reuters has been told. a senior executive of the company. Tuesday.

Analysts and company sources said Russia could miss its May target of reaching pre-crisis oil production levels due to a lack of spare production capacity, but it could do so later in the year. Read more

Yury Masalkin, head of exploration at Gazprom Neft, said new technologies helped speed up production start-up by 2-3 times from the time of oil discovery at the company’s Zima project in Siberia. western.

“The company has achieved one of the highest successful drilling rates in the industry thanks to the introduction of a new complex geological modeling approach in Russia,” he said.

Gazprom Neft said it plans to increase drilling activity this year by about half. It expects oil and gas condensate production to increase by 7% in 2022. Read more

Reporting by Olesya Astakhova; written by Vladimir Soldatkin; edited by Susan Fenton

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