Gazprom Brings New Arctic Projects Onstream

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom inaugurated on January 18 new production capacities and the Bovanenkovo–Ukhta 2 gas pipeline at the Bovanenkovskoye field. The projects aim to boost Russia’s Northern Corridor and Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Europe.

Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller and heads of Gazprom’s specialised structural units, subsidiaries and contracting organisations attended the event. Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the event via conference call, according to a press release posted on Gazprom’s website on January 18.

Miller said Gazprom’s main resource base is shifting northward to Yamal, where Gazprom makes consistent efforts to develop the new gas production center that will secure gas supplies across Russia in the coming decades. "The new gas pipeline, Bovanenkovo–Ukhta 2, commissioned today as part of the northern gas transmission corridor, reshapes the geography of gas flows for both domestic supplies and exports,” Miller said.

"The northern corridor becomes fundamental to gas supplies throughout European Russia and integral to the shortest, most reliable and efficient new route for gas exports to Europe, stretching from Yamal to Germany across the Baltic Sea. It is the Nord Stream 2 project, whose implementation is running on schedule,” he added.

"A major gas production center, which is strategic to Russia’s gas industry, was established and is currently developed by Gazprom in the Yamal Peninsula,” Gazprom said in the press release.

Faced with a challenging Arctic environment, Gazprom set up a brand new and powerful industrial complex with a transport infrastructure and a full-fledged utility system. Yamal’s largest field, Bovanenkovskoye, has two efficient production facilities with an aggregate design capacity of 90 billion cubic metres of gas per year, the press release read. In addition, Gazprom has built a railroad, which includes the world’s longest bridge beyond the Arctic Circle, and the first airport in Russia’s modern history.

Step by step, Gazprom said it expands its production capacities at Bovanenkovskoye. The operating well stock added 88 wells today, bringing their total number to 391. Two booster compressor stations with a total capacity of 160 MW were brought online as well.

In parallel with boosting production capacities in Yamal, Gazprom actively expands the northern gas transmission corridor within Russia’s Unified Gas Supply System, building new, highly efficient gas trunklines. The Bovanenkovo–Ukhta and Ukhta–Torzhok pipelines are already onstream, the Russian company said.

The Bovanenkovo–Ukhta 2 gas pipeline also entered operation on January 18. It comprises a 1,260-kilometer linear part and new shops (total capacity of 192 MW) at the Baidaratskaya and Intinskaya compressor stations. The pipeline’s has a design capacity of 57.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year. The combined design throughput of Bovanenkovo–Ukhta and Bovanenkovo–Ukhta 2 is 115 billion cubic metres per year.

In the medium term, it is planned to complete the construction of a third production facility at the Bovanenkovskoye field, as well as the Ukhta–Torzhok 2 gas pipeline and compressor capacities of Bovanenkovo–Ukhta 2. As a result, the field will reach its design capacity of 115 billion cubic metres per year, thus becoming one of Russia’s most productive fields, Gazprom said.

https://www.neweurope.eu/article/gazprom-brings-new-arctic-projects-onstream/

(New Europe, January 18, 2017)

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