DUSHANBE, May 26, 2009, Asia-Plus — Closed joint-stock company (CJSC) Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz has launched a seismic survey of the Sariqamish gas field in the Shahrinav district, using the sophisticated search techniques – 3D technologies.
Yekaterina Kozhevnikova, a spokeswoman for the representative office of Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz in Dushanbe, said that a scientific-technical meeting held at the Tajik Main Geology Directorate in Dushanbe on May 22 endorsed the project for seismic survey of the Sariqamish gas field, worked out by open joint-stock company (OJSC) Saratovneftegeofizika, which is a contracting agency to conduct geophysical survey.
According to her, an areal seismic prospecting method will be used on 125 square kilometers of the Sariqamish gas field for the first time in Tajikistan. World’s most advanced technologies will be used during the seismic prospecting work; thus, they will use telemetry system SN 408UL (Sersel, France), filed computing centers equipped with processing systems SPW and Focus, etc.
“24 flatcars with equipment, bulldozers, vehicles and trailers for personnel have arrived in Tursunzoda by May 25 and another 10 flatcars with equipment are supposed to arrive in Tajikistan by the end of May,” the spokeswoman said, noting that work on rehabilitation of access roads to the field already began.
Kozhevnikova noted that the Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz director general Valery Gulev met with high-ranking Tajik state officials on May 18-19 to discuss work of operator of Gazprom’s projects in Tajikistan. On May 19, he met with Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov to discuss issues related to implementation of the agreement on basic principles of conducting geological surveys of oil-and-gas fields in Tajikistan.
Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz is an affiliate of Russia’s state-controlled gas company Gazprom, which is the world’s largest gas company basically focused on geological exploration, production, transmission, storage, processing and marketing of gas and other hydrocarbons. The state owns a 50.002 per cent controlling stake in Gazprom. Gazprom possesses the world’s largest natural gas reserves. The Company’s share in the global and Russian gas stocks makes up 17 and 60 per cent, respectively, with its overall reserves estimated at 29.85 tcm and currently priced at US$ 182.5 bln. Gazprom’s share in the global and Russian gas production is nearly 20 and 85 per cent, respectively.
Cooperation between the Tajik government and Gazprom is regulated by a long-term (till 2028) agreement on strategic cooperation in the gas industry signed between Gazprom and Tajikistan’s Ministry of Energy in Dushanbe on May 15, 2003 and a memorandum of intent on launching joint Tajik-Russian enterprises of March 28, 2006. Gazprom has been working in Tajikistan on providing the beginning of geological explorations since July 2006.
Gazprom has received licenses from the Tajik government to explore four oil-and-gas reserves in Tajikistan: Rengan; Sargazon; Sariqamish; and the Western Shaambari.
According to Gazprom, the Rengan field, located in the Roudaki district, 20 kilometers from the Tajik capital, has possible gas reserves of 35 billion cubic meters. As it had been reported earlier, the Sargazon field, located in Khatlon’s Danghara district, some 150 kilometers from Dushanbe, has possible reserves of 30 billion cubic meters.
According to expert estimates, the aggregate raw-materials resources of the oil and gas bearing areas in Tajikistan amount to about 1,000 billion tons of reference fuel. At the same time, production work at oil and gas fields require considerable expenditure, since hydrocarbon deposits occur at depths ranging from 6.5 to 8 kilometers.
