RusEnergy

18 October 2007 - Upstream OnLine - Russian producer TNK-BP hopes to bump up output at the giant but highly depleted Samotlor field in West Siberia, it said today. Igor Tsykin, general director of TNK-BP Samotlor, TNK-BP's unit developing the deposit, said the field was expected to produce around 657,500 barrels per day from 2008 to 2011, up by 2% from the 642,700 bpd forecast for this year. "We will produce 240 million barrels per year from next year," Tsykin told reporters after a news conference in West Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk. "After 2011 we are planning to maintain Samotlor output at similar levels but there is nothing certain," he added. The field produced around 620,000 bpd last year. Tsykin also said the licences for Samotlor, which has reserves of about 4 billion barrels of oil, have been prolonged through to 2069. Once the Soviet Union's prized field, making up half of Soviet oil output when peaking at 7 million bpd in the 1980s, Samotlor is now 70% depleted. TNK-BP said late last year that it would invest $1 billion through to 2010 on rebuilding and reconstructing oil pipelines and improving its green record.