Rosneft Announces Completion Of World’s Longest Well

Rosneft announced the successful completion of the world’s longest well in the Sea of Okhotsk today, according to a new report from World Oil.

The Orlan platform finished the 15,000 feet -horizontal completion, creating a world record for the measurement. Since the Sakhalin-1 project began, the project has drilled nine of the world’s ten longest wells.

Sakhalin-1 is operated by ExxonMobil.

While output at oil sites operated by foreign oil majors under production-sharing agreements dropped by 39 percent in September over August, Russian companies boosted their domestic oil production. Output at the biggest oil firm Rosneft increased 1.2 percent to 3.82 million bpd, and production at no.2 Lukoil inched up 0.7 percent to 1.64 million bpd, according to Energy Ministry data, cited by Reuters.

Russia’s pledge in the OPEC/non-OPEC deal is to shave off 300,000 bpd from the October 2016 level, which was the highest in almost 30 years.

Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on September 21 that Russia would exceed its share of the output cuts for September, due to maintenance works.

“We are well below, due to maintenance works at some of our enterprises, including Sakhalin-1,” TASS news agency quoted Novak as telling reporters a few weeks ago. 

Related: Falling Iraqi Oil Output Drags OPEC Production Down

Non-OPEC Russia, like OPEC’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia and most of the other cartel members entered the joint deal at a very high level of production, which took much of the sting out of the cuts. In the last quarter of 2016, Russia’s production hit a post-Soviet era high, while year over year in 2016, production grew to 10.96 million bpd, from 10.72 million bpd in 2015.

As for Exxon’s Russian adventures, sanctions have forced the American major to lose money from revenues generated by its ongoing Russian projects, such as the flagship project Sakhalin-1 and a number of joint ventures with Rosneft. It also lost future revenues. Another Arctic venture alone was valued at $500 billion in total investments.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

• Houthi Rebels Threaten To Attack Saudi Oil Tankers
• IEA’s Shocking Revelation About U.S. Shale
• Why Saudi Arabia Should Fear U.S. Oil Dominance