Gazprom Pushes Ahead with Export Projects
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom issued an update on its major investment projects on April 10. It is building the facilities at the Chayandinskoye gas project in Yakutia in order to raise the field's production to a plateau rate of 25bn m3/yr.
Chayandinskoye delivers gas to China via the 38bn m3/yr Power of Siberia pipeline launched in December last year. Gazprom did not say in its statement when Chayandinskoye would hit its full production capacity, although it has previously said the milestone would be reached in 2022-2023. It added that the membrane unit for helium concentrate extraction at the field was due on stream this year.
Gazprom added that production drilling was in "full swing" at another of the Power of Siberia's supplier fields: Kovyktinskoye, in the Irkutsk region, which is due to come on stream by the end of 2022. Seven drilling rigs are in operation at the site, it said, with the number set to climb to 18 next year. Gazprom aims to begin building the pipeline section linking Kovyktinskoye with Chayandinskoye in the third quarter, and also construct a second compressor station at Power of Siberia this year.
Construction of the Amur gas processing plant (GPP) near the Chinese border, which will treat Power of Siberia's gas, is 58% complete, Gazprom said. Its start-up year is 2021. Installation work at the first two of its six 7bn m3/yr trains is almost finished.
Gazprom has also laid 66 of the 390 km of pipe needed to enlarge the 5.5bn m3/yr Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok (SKV) pipeline. The expansion will increase supplies to domestic consumers in the Far East, and provide an option for additional sales to China.
On the Yamal Peninsula, Gazprom aims to launch 52 new gas wells in 2020 at the Bovanenkovskoye field, which is working up to its third-phase capacity of 115bn m3/yr. At the nearby Kharasaveyskoye field, it is beginning to weld pipes for gas collection headers and a pipeline connecting to Bovanenkovskoye. Production drilling and the construction of gas treatment and compression units is also due to start at Kharasaveyskoye this year. Gazprom plans to commission the field's first 32bn m3/yr stage in 2023.
Most of the extra gas from Bovanenkovskoye and Kharasaveyskoye is destined for Europe, as the fields further south are in steep decline. Gazprom is building the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta 2 and Ukhta-Torzhok 2 pipelines to handle these supplies, which will feed into Nord Stream pipelines, shortening the delivery route to Europe relative to using – and paying for – Ukraine transit.