Lukoil begins wellhead platform substructure installation on V. Filanovsky

Lukoil, Russia’s largest privately-held oil company, has completed transportation and started installation of the substructure for the wellhead platform at the V. Filanovsky field in the Caspian Sea.

Lukoil said on Tuesday that the wellhead platform, a mini offshore ice-resistant fixed platform, was designed to produce and gather crude oil as well as to supply it to the central processing platform of the first stage of the field.

The platform is being built as part of the third stage of the field, which is implemented to develop the western part of the reservoir and maintain a stable production plateau level which is 6 million tonnes per year, reached in June this year.

The substructure for the wellhead platform was built at the Galaktika shipyard in Astrakhan and transported to the installation site via the Volga-Caspian Shipping Canal.

Lukoil-Nizhnevolzhskneft, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, is currently building the topside for the wellhead platform at its construction and assembly yard in Astrakhan.

According to the company, the start of crude oil production at the wellhead platform is scheduled for 2019. Nearly all operations of the facility will be automated which could minimize the involvement of service personnel.

As for the Vladimir Filanovsky field, it is considered the largest post-Soviet discovery in Russia. Commercial operation of the field, with C1+C2 reserves, equals 129 million tonnes of oil and 30 billion cubic meters of gas.

The field is located in the northern Caspian Sea, 220 km away from the city of Astrakhan. Water depth in the field’s area ranges from seven to 11 meters.

The field is being developed in the three phases. Phase 1 facilities were commissioned in 2016 and included a fixed ice-resistant platform, an accommodation block platform, a riser block and a central processing platform. Eight wells were drilled at Phase 1, six of them are production and two injection wells.

In the second phase, the construction of eight wells is planned including six producing and two injection wells.