Russia is a country that owns a truly huge oil reserve. The largest is considered the Samotlor field, which is the sixth largest in the world. It is here that the lion's share of all oil owned by the Russian Federation is extracted.
What else is noteworthy Samotlor oil field? How long has it been open and what profit has the country already brought? How many useful deposits are there? And how does it affect the environment?
Where is the Samotlor field located?
In the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area there is a large lake called Samotlor. It is near its shores that this oil producing base is located. Also a good reference is the city of Nizhnevartovsk, in which almost all the employees of this enterprise live.
Curious is the fact that this city was built just for the people who mastered this field. The Samotlor oil company ultimately became not only their place of work, but also turned into a new home. Today, the population of Nizhnevartovsk ranges from 268 thousand people.
Discovery story
In the postwar years, the USSR launched a huge political campaign aimed at the speedy restoration of the country. Within its framework, a program was established to conquer the harsh Siberian lands for the sake of their natural wealth. Geological expeditions went one after another to impassable regions of the country in the hope of discovering something new.
And so, in early 1965, a group of researchers received interesting information. According to them, in the Khanty-Mansiysk District there is a lake in which all the fish died out, and birds do not land on its waters. Scientists quickly realized what was happening, and sent part of the research team there.
On June 22, 1965, the geologists who arrived at the site drilled the first exploration well there. As expected, oil hit the fountain from it, thereby pointing to a new field - Samotlor.
The solution to a difficult task
However, the joy of the new find soon turned into a series of problems. The main one was the construction of platforms to service the Samotlor field. The photos taken in this area showed that most of the territory is covered with peat bogs, which means that it will not be possible to erect the usual buildings there.
Initially, the engineers wanted to construct special flyovers, allowing the installation of oil production equipment at a height. However, considering the money and time costs, the government refused to implement this idea.
The next proposal was to drain the swamps, which is much faster and cheaper. But scientists banned it in time. After all, it is worth removing water from this area, and it will become dangerous for the field. And the reason for this is peat, which without water quickly dries up and ignites.
The solution came suddenly and became innovative for this area. Its essence was that before starting drilling wells, workers created bulk islands. Thus, overpasses were not needed, and peat deposits were not affected.
And so, at the beginning of 1969, the oil company began pumping out its first production from the bowels of the earth. They say that in those years the pressure was so strong that the pipes heated up in a matter of seconds and hummed as if ghosts had invaded them.
Samotlor field: general information
If we talk about the field itself, then it includes 18 layers of oil. In total, they contain about 7.1 billion tons of "black gold". At one time, such wealth made it possible to provide a quarter of the USSR with raw materials and fuel.
On average, drillers have to punch from 1.5 to 2.4 km of soil to get to the oil deposits. And, nevertheless, over the past half century, more than 16.5 thousand production wells have been completed. Thanks to this, by 2000, the Samotlor oil field gave the world more than 2.3 billion tons of oil.
True, most of the "black gold" was mined back to the mid-1980s. At that time, oil production received about 100 million tons of precious liquid per year from the bowels of the earth. But over time, oil production fell and in the early 90s amounted to only 16-20 million tons per year.
The reason for this is the rapid flooding of wells with water, even those that were recently built. This is due to the fact that this field is located in a swampy area, which enhances the effect of underwater.
Using new technologies
New life in the Samotlor oil field helped to breathe progress. The use of modern mechanisms has allowed again to increase the amount of extracted raw materials. Thanks to this, in 2015, the Samotlor field reached the next anniversary mark of 2.7 billion tons.
Also, by 2017, it is planned to carry out a number of improvements that can not only accelerate oil production, but also make this process more economical. To this end, Samotlorneftegaz OJSC, working under the auspices of Rosneft, began to build a special complex capable of providing its own electricity production and automated control of the hardware.
