Welcome addresses

Enlarged photo (JPG, 403 KB)

Member of the Board,
Head of Department,
Gazprom PJSC
Sergey Menshikov

DEAR FRIENDS!

I AM GLAD TO WELCOME THE ORGANIZERS, PARTICIPANTS AND GUESTS OF THE VIII INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL CONFERENCE «RUSSIAN OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT: ARCTIC AND FAR EAST» (ROOGD-2020).

Over the past years, the conference has firmly entered the calendar of significant scientific events, bringing together well-known scientists, experts and specialists representing international and Russian mining and service companies, research institutes and universities, and professional associations with its relevant goals and objectives.

To ensure reliable gas supplies to consumers in the long term, Gazprom PJSC is consistently developing its resource base. One of the key tasks in this work is an integrated approach to the study and development of the shelf, in particular, the Arctic seas, in the depths of which up to 80% of the main hydrocarbon resources are concentrated. At the same time, the Barents and Kara seas are dominated by gas and condensate, the Pechora Sea is dominated by oil, and the Sea of Okhotsk has oil and gas resources. In 2020, the next tests of an exploration well were conducted at the Leningradskoye field of the Yamal Gas Production Center, where an industrial gas inflow with a flow rate of more than 1 million cubic meters a day was obtained during the research, which is a record for deposits on the Russian Arctic shelf.

The conference is rightly famous for its rich agenda, authoritative makeup of participants and a high level of discussion, which allows us to comprehensively discuss a wide range of topical issues related to the development of colossal natural resources concentrated on the shelf, and to develop joint constructive approaches to solving urgent scientific and practical problems. Communication of famous scientists with young researchers will greatly help the latter in their further scientific activities.

Let me wish the conference a successful and fruitful work, achievement of its goals, and its participants and guests — fruitful discussions, interesting ideas and, of course, good health!

Dear colleagues and participants of the conference!

I welcome you at the VIII International Scientific and Technical Conference «Russian Offshore Oil and Gas Development: Arctic and Far East».

It gives me a pleasure to note the traditional high interest in the conference topic and the expanded geography of participants thanks to Internet technologies. An active conference platform is a good opportunity to comprehensively discuss the problems and prospects for the evolution of development of the Russian continental shelf.

The event brings together scientists from various fields, starting from geology and engineering to specialists in the field of shipbuilding, ecology and industrial safety.

Gazprom VNIIGAZ LLC has a significant intellectual potential in the development of offshore oil and gas resources and is ready to be a platform for advanced scientific cooperation. The Institute makes a serious contribution to solving the problems of scientific support of the entire production cycle. These are the study results and the outcome of geological exploration, formation of design solutions in preparation of process documents, scientific support of author supervision in solving current production problems arising during the operation of fields.

Almost a quarter of all reserves developed by Gazprom PJSC are offshore fields. The development of these resources is a promising science-intensive, technologically and technically sophisticated task. Today, partnership in the development of the continental shelf serves our common interests and brings real benefits to our entire country. And I am sure that by cooperating with each other, we will be able to achieve even greater success. I wish you fruitful work, interesting discussions, and the implementation of bold scientific ideas!

Dear colleagues!

I am glad to have the opportunity to discuss together again the current issues of offshore hydrocarbon production on the shelves of the freezing seas of Russia in the Arctic and the Far East!

I would like to note the following important points in the overall picture of our work on the shelf.

The Prirazlomnoye field has been successfully producing oil in the harsh ice conditions of the Barents Sea already for seven years. The world's first offshore ice-resistant fixed platform ‘Prirazlomnaya’, the largest marine structure ever built in Russian shipyards, was constructed with Russian money (Gazprom), under the Russian design (Morneftegasproekt, Rubin, Corall), and at the Russian factory (Sevmash)!’

The platform was designed with the support of Brown and Root, an experienced British marine engineering oil and gas company.

A successful implementation of the Prirazlomny project has opened up huge opportunities for Russian science, oil and gas industry and shipbuilding in solving the problems of developing marine hydrocarbon resources. The Prirazlomny project combines the unique domestic experience of scientific justification and support, design, construction, accident-free operation, regulatory, personnel support and management of a large-scale project, and it has become the pride of our country.

Many remarkable names of outstanding Russian engineers and scientists engaged in marine and oil and gas technologies have been highlighted by the Prirazlomny project!

Gazprom Neft, which operates the Prirazlomnaya platform, has today produced and shipped to Europe more than 15 million tons of Arctic oil from the platform.

It is a great satisfaction that in 2019 a group of managers and leading specialists of the Prirazlomny project from Sevmash, Rubin and Gazprom were awarded the Russian Government Prize in the field of science and technology.

The research, production and organizational potential formed during the Prirazlomny project is being successfully implemented today by Sevmash and Zvezdochka in the building of a platform for the Kamennomyssk gas field in the Ob bay under the order of Gazprom.

Kurchatov Institute and Malachit are developing a self-propelled underwater vehicle for monitoring underwater pipelines under the order of Gazprom. Sevmash will build this vehicle.

Domestic shipbuilding has gained a high reputation in the Russian oil and gas industry. At the competition of suppliers of equipment for the fuel and energy sector in 2020, Sevmash received the highest rating from the Center of Fuel and Energy Suppliers in the Marine Stationary Platforms category.

The development of marine hydrocarbons in our country is getting a new breath: a powerful center for the production of technical equipment and facilities for the offshore production and transportation of hydrocarbons is being created in the Far East.

The development of offshore hydrocarbon production, which was given a new impetus by the establishment of Rosshelf in 1992 by Gazprom, Sevmash, the Kurchatov Institute and other interested organizations, has acquired a steady character in Russia. This is also evidenced by the regular successful holding of Russian conferences concerning the Arctic shelf in Moscow and in St. Petersburg. I thank VNIIGAZ and the Conference organizers for being able to successfully overcome the objective difficulties we experience now in organizing an important event and congratulate the participants on the beginning of the Conference!

This is the first time I am delivering a welcome speech, while earlier I made reports in Plenary Sessions at all previous ROOGD conferences. And I want to say that the very fact of holding the conference is of great importance, because it is possible to keep the direction, record achievements and thus better predict the future.

I would like to say that Yevgeny Pavlovich Velikhov is always present at these conferences and now, like many participants, remotely.

If you look at the overall Russian offshore development, we much later than other countries started to develop offshore fields, and this was due to objective economic reasons, because they said in those distant years that why go all the way to the shelf when we have more than enough fields onshore. But we always had the same approach, even in the energy resource industry. And was this approach beneficial or not?

On the one hand, we won economically, because we developed those fields that were large, located near the installed oil and gas pipelines, and which became more cost-effective. Thus, the country, without paying much attention to the development of the oil and gas industry, I would say, has kept the country's economy in good condition for many decades. And this happened after switch to new technologies.

But at the same time, it should be said that like now we have such conferences when academic consultation is required, and then we begin to compare which is more economically feasible: whether it is offshore fields or fields in other areas.

For example, for comparison, let us consider offshore gas production, when the average cost of oil production in the country in the first years of field operation is kept at the level of 100 USD per barrel.

At the same time, working offshore develops new technologies not only for the oil and gas industry, but also gives an incentive to the development of the economy as a whole.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the development of two fields on the Arctic shelf: Prirazlomnoye and Varandey-sea, the field which was put into operation later, are of great importance. Yevgeny Pavlovich Velikhov was at the origin of the development of these deposits.

In connection with the current situation in the world and taking into account the fact that Russia is a powerful country which operates the longest oil and gas transportation system, let us consider the attempts Russia made to get out and change the situation: at first, we had factories that supplied all the products through the former socialist countries to Europe. Then, situation began to change: I am talking about supplies to Europe via Belarus and Poland. We had problems with Poland. Then, a third energy approach emerged, and we began to look for new options, like Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. We are now developing the eastern direction.

But we now see that Russia needs to develop more efficiently the fields where the plants will be built. We have experience in Norilsk. In 2019, the volume of liquefied gas exports increased by 44 %.

And now we need to carefully consider the prospects of the Shtokman field. At that time, we stopped such a flow of field exploitation, and even the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and VNIIGAZ argued with the French Petroleum Institute about whether to use a single-phase or two-phase transport to transfer gas to the shore. Everything was ready, but no market existed.

We looked at the economic calculations: We could not get profit by sending the Shtokman gas to the Russian domestic market. Thus, the project was suspended.

But now this project can become strategically important, because it is possible to start operation and build a gas liquefaction plant in a short time.

Then, there will be another powerful argument in the energy dispute with the European competitor for the supply of Russian energy resources.

All of this should be considered. It is very important that VNIIGAZ pays attention to this issue constantly, successfully conducts this conference, and is also one of the organizers of the conference, which is held in St. Petersburg (RAO CIS), where many participants of this event also take part.

The work of the conference, the most interesting reports, and excellent speeches are ahead of us. Now everyone has the opportunity today and at a considerable distance from each other to find a model for communication. I would like to wish the participants every success in holding the conference.

We need to take care of ourselves during this difficult time and to protect ourselves from this terrible disease, which, I think, we can defeat, including by utilizing the developments made by Russian healthcare professionals. I wish you success in the conference, health and all the best to everyone! Thank you.