Public joint-stock company Ukrgazvydobuvannia seeks to invest $3 billion to purchase and modernize drilling rigs by 2020, as well as to attract external contractors to carry out the works at the company’s fields, Ukrgazvydobuvannia Head Oleh Prokhorenko has said.
“We assess drilling at $3 billion by 2020. This includes modernization of equipment and works”, he said.
Prokhorenko said that the program included acquisition of 30 new drilling rigs (by 2020), modernization of 32 existing rigs (in 2016-2018) and drilling of around 660 new wells (71 wells in 2016, 88 wells in 2017, 131 wells in 2018, 166 wells in 2019 and 201 wells in 2020). The company intends to attract 15 rigs of international contractors in 2017.
“The task is to expand our fleet and the fleet of contractors. We will try to have 114 rigs in operation by 2020 and increase the speed of commercial drilling”, he said, adding that Ukrgazvydobuvannia now drilled 297 meters per rig a month, while the figure of external contractors was around 900 meters per rig a month.
Prokhorenko believes that $3 billion of investment into the expansion of drilling in 2016-2020 is not a sky-high figure. He took $54 billion Ukraine sent to import Russian gas in 2009-2013 as an example.
He also said that investment of $500 million in outsourcing would help to drill 90 wells by 15 rigs and get an additional 3.3 billion of cubic meters of natural gas a year. This is a good figure for saving compared to purchases of imported gas.
He said that the company would conduct 3D seismic works on 17 fields with gross area of 1,500 square meters in coming years. (Interfax/Business World Magazine)
