Gazprom Neft shifts focus to gas
Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russia's state gas supplier Gazprom, is itself shifting its focus towards natural gas, the company's first deputy CEO Vadim Yakovlev said at the SPE ATCE conference in Dubai on September 21.
Gazprom Neft has had to curtail its oil production in recent years because of OPEC+ cuts, which will remain in force until at least next year. As such, it has focused on building up its gas business.
The company's overall production has returned to its pre-pandemic level of 2mn barrels of oil equivalent/day, Yakovlev said, according to Russia's Tass news agency. Around 35% of that is natural gas. The executive said the company expected gas as well as condensate to account for 80% of its production growth over the next decade.
Gazprom Neft is looking at ways of monetising large gas reserves at its remote oilfields in the Russian Arctic, including at Novoportovskoye and the East- and West-Messoyakhskoye fields. It will also begin operating later this year Russia's first LNG bunkering vessel.
Yakovlev also said he saw strong potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Russia.
"The scale of this industry is 10 gigatons/year," he said. "In volume terms, the scale of this industry is comparable to the volume of oil and gas that is currently extracted from the ground."
Russia has a competitive advantage in this area, he said, given its extensive pipeline network and its many depleted deposits that can be used for storage.
Gazprom Neft already captures and reinjects CO2 into oilfields in Serbia to boost reservoir pressure. It is working with including partners in Russian industry, including steelmaker Severstal, on developing CCS and blue hydrogen.