Russia's Gazprom has opened major tenders for development of its Kovykta gas and condensate field in East Siberia as the state-controlled gas monopoly aims to grow gas exports to China.
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According to tender disclosure notices from subsidiary Gazprom Podzemremont Urengoy, it is seeking hydraulic fracturing, coil tubing and drilling contractors for jobs to start this year and continue for three to five years.
The three tenders could together be worth around 8.6 billion roubles ($113 million).
According to tender conditions, bidders will compete with each other by offering a lower price for their service, with the deadline for submitting bids set for 2 November.
In the first lot, Gazprom expects the winning contractor to perform 82 multi-stage fracking operations through to the end of 2022.
Two fracking fleets will carry out this work in long horizontal sections at depths below 3300 metres into a relatively thin formation.
In the second lot, Gazprom is seeking a contractor to provide two coil tubing units to prepare wells for production after fracking operations are completed.
The company expects that up to 164 wells will have coil tubes installed until 2023.
Finally, in the third lot, Gazprom is seeking a contractor to provide a heavy drilling rig to spud 29 new development wells at six clusters at the Kovykta field.
Gazprom anticipates that the drilling of each well may take between 43 and 51 days because of the complexity of their profiles and the need to isolate formations with extremely high salt content, with the job to be completed before the end of 2025.
The Kovykta field has estimated recoverable reserves of 2.7 trillion cubic metres of gas and 680 million barrels of condensate.
Drilling has to be conducted in remote locations at a high mountainous plateau that is located between 700 and 1100 metres from the sea level.
In October, Gazprom upped Kovykta plateau production to 27.2 billion cubic metres of gas per annum against the previous target of 25 Bcm.
Gazprom expects the field to reach this level in 2026, three years after the expected tie-in of this asset to the Sila Sibiri gas export pipeline, which connects the Chayanda field in East Siberia with the south-east of China.
The drilling of new development wells on the Kovykta field after 2026 could increase its annual production to as much as 33.5 Bcm by 2032.
Although Gazprom has contracted to deliver a maximum of 38 Bcma of gas to China via Sila Sibiri, chairman Alexei Miller said that talks are ongoing to boost the target to 44 Bcma.
