LUKoil discovered 300 mln ton deposit site on Caspian sea

/IRBIS, March 23, 00/ - REUTERS informs, with the reference to vice- president of LUKoil Leonid Fedun, that OJSC LUKoil discovered a deposit site on Russian part of Caspian sea with at least 300 mln tons of extractable oil reserves. He said the results of preliminary drillings had given the information on possible 300 mln tons of extractable oil in North-Astrakhan part of the sea and a great reserves of gas. As Fedun says that during the drilling work conducted on a deposit site named "Litsenzionnyi uchastok Severnyi" (Licensed northern plot) nine horizons were drilled and of which six horizons indicated positive hydrocarbon flows. Vice-president of the company said the quality of the oil resembled that of the light oil of Azerbaijan's part of the sea. He also added their oil contained low hydrogen sulfide than that of Kazakhstan. He mentioned of three possible schemes of oil deliveries from the site. At the beginning stage it is planned that oil will be transported on the company's oil tankers of "river-sea" type with 5-6 th. tons of displacement to the refinery in Volgograd. At later stages, provided oil production increases, oil can be transported by the same tankers up to the port in Makhachkala and pumped into the pipeline to Novorossiisk, that is almost completed by Transneft, bypassing Chechnya. Finally, it is expected that oil can be transported through the pipeline of Caspian pipeline consortium (CPC). In this case, LUKoil needs to build a little cross-connection from Astrakhan to CPC. This year the company plans to drill one more exploration well. Total number of wells is to reach 8 till the year 2003. In 2003 the company plans to start full scale industrial drilling works and complete 200 more wells. Up to the moment, the company has invested $200 mln into the development of the site, including the purchase and transportation of oil platform to the deposit site. Investments expected to reach $6 bln in next 10 years, and at least 10% of this amount is to be used for environmental protection purposes.