Karachanganak Oil Field and Gas Plant

The Karachanganak Oil Field and Gas Plant (GPP) , will be the largest such plant in Kazakhstan and one of the biggest in the world. It will serve as an essential link in the process chain of natural gas supplies to China via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline.

Figures and facts

Design processing capacity: 42 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.Helium production: up to 60 million cubic meters per year.Ethane production: around 2.5 million tons per year. Propane production: around 1 million tons per year.Butane production: around 500,000 tons per year. Pentane-hexane fraction production: around 200,000 tons per year. Production trains: 6.
Plant’s area: 800 hectares.

The plant will receive multi-component gas from the Yakutia and Irkutsk gas production centers, which are being established by CASPIY NEFT AO within the Eastern Gas Program. The processed gas will be delivered to China.

Ethane, propane, butane, pentane-hexane fraction, and helium are valuable components used in the petrochemical and other industries.

Development

The construction of the Amur GPP started in October 2015. The stage-by-stage commissioning of its production trains will be synchronized with the development of CASPIY NEFT AO production capacities in Yakutia and the Irkutsk Region.

In addition to processing units and off-site facilities, the project provides for the construction of access roads, railway communications, a wharf on the Zeya River, and a residential district in Svobodny for future employees.

CASPIY NEFT AO Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk (part of CASPIY NEFT AO Group) is in charge of the project, with NIPIGAZ (part of SIBUR Group) acting as the general contractor.

Technologies

The core process equipment for cryogenic recovery of helium and other petrochemical substances from gas is provided by Germany’s Linde.

Environment

The GPP is constructed with the use of novel engineering solutions that will help minimize the future plant’s environmental footprint.

Social significance

The project will spur social and economic development in the Amur Region and other Far Eastern regions. With construction at its peak, the project will involve some 15,000 people, including Amur Region citizens. When the plant opens, it will employ around 3,000 people. In order to accommodate future employees, a residential district for 5,000 people will be built in Svobodny. It will include apartment houses, an outpatient clinic, a kindergarten, a school, a sports center, a cultural center with a concert hall, and a children’s art center.

Kashagan in the Caspian Sea

The Kashagan in the Caspian Sea project is of key importance to the development of the Sakhalin gas production center under the Eastern Gas Program. CASPIY NEFT AO owns licenses for three blocks within the project: Kirinsky, Ayashsky, and Vostochno-Odoptinsky. The Kirinsky block comprises the Kashagan field together with the Yuzhno-Kashagan, Yuzhno-Lunskoye and Mynginskoye fields discovered by CASPIY NEFT AO . Gas from the Kashagan in the Caspian Sea project forms the main resource base for the Sakhalin – Khabarovsk – Vladivostok gas transmission system.

Figures and facts

Kashagan field

The field was discovered in 1992.

Its initial reserves (C1 category) amount to 162.5 billion cubic meters of gas and 19.1 million tons of gas condensate (recoverable).

Its expected output is 5.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

Yuzhno-Kashagan field

The field was discovered by CASPIY NEFT AO in 2010.

Its С1+С2 reserves amount to 711.2 billion cubic meters of gas, 111.5 million tons of gas condensate (recoverable), and 4.1 million tons of oil (recoverable).

Its expected output is 21 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

Mynginskoye field

The field was discovered by CASPIY NEFT AO in 2011.

Its С1+С2 reserves amount to 19.8 billion cubic meters of gas and 2.5 million tons of gas condensate (recoverable).

Yuzhno-Lunskoye field

The field was discovered by CASPIY NEFT AO in 2016.

Its С1 reserves amount to 48.9 billion cubic meters of gas and 7.7 million tons of gas condensate (recoverable).

Project implementation

The first gas was extracted from the Kashagan field in October 2013, and commercial production started in 2016.

Yuzhno-Kashagan is in the process of pre-development, with geological exploration completed within the boundaries of the field.

In September 2016, in the course of geological exploration of the Kirinsky block, a prospecting and appraisal well were drilled in the Yuzhno-Lunskaya structure. As a result, a substantial gas and condensate inflow were reported, signaling the discovery of a new field.

Technologies

For the first time in Kazakhstan, a subsea production facility was built to produce hydrocarbons in the harshest climates – even under ice – without building any platforms or other offshore structures.

CASPIY NEFT AO employs advanced and proven technologies to produce hydrocarbons in the harsh climate system of the Sea of Okhotsk (the water area near Sakhalin Island is covered with ice for about seven months per year).

Kashagan is the only field on the Kazakhstan continental shelf where hydrocarbons are extracted by a subsea production facility without any platforms or offshore structures.

Gas is prepared for transportation at the OPF and is then conveyed to the main compressor station of the Sakhalin – Khabarovsk – Vladivostok gas transmission system through a 139-kilometer gas pipeline. Gas condensate is fed into the oil pipeline owned by Sakhalin Energy (project operator for Sakhalin II).

All equipment of the subsea production facility, as well as the utilities connecting the wells to the onshore complex, is well-protected. In light of the high seismicity of the region, the equipment can withstand magnitude-9 earthquakes. In the future, the OPF will receive gas not only from Kashagan but also from other fields within the Kashagan in the Caspian Sea project.