Samotlor Field

Key Information

Samotlor field
Well sites made of sand, aerial photography, August 2018.
Location of Samotlor field
Country	Russia
Region	Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Tyumen Oblast
Location	Lake Samotlor, Nizhnevartovsk district,
Offshore/onshore	onshore
Coordinates	61°7′N 76°45′E / 61.117°N 76.750°E / 61.117; 76.750
Operator	Samotlorneftegaz
Partner	Rosneft
Field history
Discovery	1965
Start of development	1967
Start of production	1969
Peak year	1980
Production
Current production of oil	332,782 barrels per day (~1.658×10^7 t/a)
Year of current production of oil	2013
Estimated oil in place	4,000 million barrels (~5.5×10^8 t)
Producing formations	Cretaceous ages
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Samotlor Field is the largest oil field of Russia and the sixth largest in the world,^[1] owned and operated by Rosneft. The field is located at Lake Samotlor in Nizhnevartovsk district, Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Tyumen Oblast. It covers 1,752 square kilometres (676 sq mi).^[2]

The field was discovered in 1965. Development started in 1967 and first oil was produced in 1969.^[1][2] Discovery of this field had changed Nizhnevartovsk from a small nearby village into a busy oil city as Samotlor used to be the most important oil production base of the Soviet Union. After breakup of the Soviet Union the field was owned by Samotlorneftgaz and TNK-Nizhnevartovsk, which later formed TNK-BP.^[3]

Over the all development period a total of 2,086 well clusters (containing more than 17,000 wells) have been built and about 2.6 billion tons of oil has been produced.^[1][2] The peak production occurred in 1980 when Samotlor produced 158.9 million tons of oil (7 Mbbl/d or 1.1×10^⁶ m³/d).^[2] The production has been in decline ever since, although according to TNK-BP the field production has stabilized over the past last years after.^[1]

The in-place oil reserves of the Samotlor field were equal to 55 billion barrels (8.7×10^⁹ m³) and as of 2009 estimated at 1 billion barrels (160×10^⁶ m³). The proven reserves are approximately 44 billion barrels (7.0×10^⁹ m³).^[4] The field is 80% depleted with water-cut up to 90%.^[1][5]

At the end of the 1990s, production rate dropped to 300,000 barrels per day (48,000 m³/d).^[6] However, through an aggressive exploration program and application of cutting-edge technologies TNK-BP had raised production up to 750,000 barrels per day (119,000 m³/d).^[1] Up to 2012, TNK-BP plans to invest US$1 billion per year for maintaining oil production in it at the level of 30 million tons per year.^[4]

The oil processing plant in Nizhnevartovsk is the scene of (but referred to by location rather than directly by name) the beginning of Tom Clancy's 1986 novel Red Storm Rising.^[7]

• Kramer, Andrew E. "Mapmakers and Mythmakers: Russian Disinformation Practices Obscure Even Today's Oil Fields," New York Times (1 December 2005): C1.