ASTRAKHAN: Alex­an­der Oboronkov leapt at the chance to work on the Filanovsky platform after it was launched in 2016, keen to see Russia’s largest Caspian Sea oilfield in action.

The Filanovsky oilfield, along with the nearby Korchagin and Rakushe­chnoye fields, are key to the growth plans at Lukoil, Russia’s second biggest oil producer, where Oboro­nkov works as deputy head of the Filanovsky platform.

The company, controlled by executives Vagit Alek­perov and Leonid Fedun, took its name from three oil towns in Lukoil’s tradition exploration region of ­western Siberian: Langepas, Urai and Kogalym.

One of the ships that docks at the Filanovsky is named Langepas.

“The Langepas cargo ship which moves back and forward to the platform reminds me of my homeland – Siberia,” said Oboronkov as he provided a tour of the platform. “One well here (by flow rate) is like 100 onshore,” he noted.

The sea is about 10 metres deep around the Filanovsky platform, but to reach oil Lukoil needs to drill wells more than 2 km deep.

The platform itself is fixed to the seabed by 60-metre-long concrete piles.

Production is expensive to begin with but promising once it is ramped up, Nikolay Lyashko, head of Lukoil Nizhnevolzhskneft, which is in charge of the Caspian projects, told Reuters.

Well site construction in the Caspian is 10 times more expensive than onshore, he said, but added that production costs are just a third of those in Russia’s traditional oil region, western Siberia.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2018