Infrastructure
All major development areas of our field are accessible by year-round, heavy-lift roads and we have an in-field pipeline network that connects pads in the western part of our field with the central processing facility. In the north of the field, where we produce condensate, we have designed and built a 9,000 bopd early processing facility for condensate production. The condensate is trucked from this facility to the rail terminal at Nyagan for onward transit.
Ruspetro’s crude oil facilities consist of an oil processing unit located on the VI Block with a processing capacity of 15,000 bopd, as well as multiple oil gathering and transportation lines within our license area. The oil processing unit removes both water and associated gas from the crude oil so that the crude meets the water-cut and solids requirements for inclusion in the Transneft pipeline.
2012 was a year in which we completed several key infrastructure projects at a speed and cost we believe to be highly competitive in our environment. Transportation, treatment and gathering infrastructure that we built in 2012 will provide processing and evacuation capacity to support production growth for the next several years.
Immediately after our IPO we began work on and completed the 27km sales pipeline that transports crude from our central processing facility to our wholly owned metering station on the Transneft pipeline from where we can sell our crude to Russian and European customers. We completed this project on time and under budget, and eliminated US$2.28/bbl of trucking costs from our field to our existing Transneft connection point.
The Company completed several projects during the year to secure and strengthen its power supply within the field. We installed a 300 amp step-up transformer at the Talinka substation which provides the main power source for the western part of the field. The Company constructed the necessary in-field power lines to increase drilling and production. We also purchased 4MW of electricity generators to enable us to utilise some of our associated petroleum gas in electricity production. A petroleum gas generator can reduce the daily cost of power of running a rig to US$800 from US$1,500 when compared to using power from the grid. This brings the cost of power to drill a new well down to US$16,800 from US$31,500.
The necessary In-field pipeline network has been completed to bring production fluid from the wells to the processing facilities and transport processed water back to the pads via the newly installed water pumping station at the central processing facility.
The in-field electricity grid, the in-field pipeline system for production fluids, processed water for reinjection and the system partially powered by associated gas brings us closer to our goal of having a closed loop production system producing, treating and transporting crude directly from our fields to end-customers world-wide.
