Vietnam’s oil and gas promotes the search for new fields and increases oil and gas reserves

In the face of the continuous decline in domestic oil and gas production, Petrovietnam encourages investment in prospecting and exploration activities, putting new fields into operation, ensuring long-term sustainable exploitation. In the face of the continuous decline in domestic oil and gas production, Petrovietnam encourages investment in prospecting and exploration activities, putting new fields into operation, ensuring long-term sustainable exploitation.

Declining production output at existing oil fields

Currently, most of the oil and gas fields being exploited in our country have been put into operation in the period from 1986 to 2015. In which, the fields that contribute a large amount of output have been exploited for 15-35 years, is in the final stage of mining. According to the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam), in recent years, the search and exploration activities to increase reserves have decreased a lot compared to the previous period. decline in output is inevitable.

According to statistics from 2015 to now, domestic oil production has continuously decreased, from 16.9 million tons in 2015; down to 15.2 million tons in 2016; 13.4 million tons in 2017; 12 million tons in 2018; 11 million tons in 2019; 9.7 million tons in 2020 and is forecast to continue to decrease in the following years.

To limit the level of natural production decline from existing wells. Every year, oil and gas contractors and Petrovietnam strive to find solutions for additional drilling of thick woven wells. However, the number of thick knitting wells is very limited and the output is usually not high because the locations for thick knitting are not many, the locations with the potential for high output have been drilled and exploited from the very beginning. of the mine. Therefore, the output of thickly drilled wells usually contributes less than 10% of the total output of the field.

In addition, other solutions to limit the decline in output such as repair, well intervention, improvement and optimization of equipment utilization factor have also been actively implemented. However, these solutions also contribute only 1% – 2% of the total output of the mine.

Flexible plans to increase catches

Facing the decline in output of existing mines and limitations in the development of new mines, maintaining and completing the mining output plan is a huge challenge. For many years, Petrovietnam has focused on investing in scientific research, promoting initiatives and inventions, with many advanced technical and technological solutions, using modern technological equipment in production, applying using a variety of solutions to improve oil recovery.

In addition to the decline in oil production due to the above difficulties, Petrovietnam’s gas exploitation plan is also expected to decrease next year, due to the difficult situation of gas consumption, especially gas consumption for the domestic market. electricity decreased sharply, while electricity was the main source of gas consumption, accounting for about 80% of total gas consumption.

Because the annual oil and gas production output plan directly affects the business performance and cash flow of the project as well as each participating contractor. Therefore, the production plan of each Oil and Gas Contract Lot is always carefully and carefully considered from the expert level to the management level of the Operator, the management level of the parties and finally the Group.

Encourage investment in search – exploration to increase oil reserves

In order to fulfill the oil and gas exploration and production targets for the period of 2020-2025, solutions in terms of technique – technology, finance – investment, mechanism – policy, organization and training have been provided by Petrovietnam. implemented in a reasonable and synchronous manner. However, with the situation of fields being exploited on the decline, in order to maintain and increase oil and gas output, the only solution is still to develop and put new fields into operation.

According to Petrovietnam, in order to achieve this, to ensure long-term sustainability, it is necessary to encourage more investment in search – exploration – exploitation, in which special attention is paid to prospecting and exploration. ) to create new reserves, helping to develop and exploit continuously and stably.

Due to the high risk of credit accounting, the success rate of exploratory wells is only 20%. If the approval process for credit savings projects is carried out like other investment and development projects, as at present, state-owned enterprises and state-owned enterprises such as Petrovietnam and PVEP are almost unable to implement projects. TKTD. According to Petrovietnam, there should be a mechanism based on which to develop strategies, 5-year plans and annual plans, in line with actual needs, so that the corporation can approve credit savings projects and not depend on capital investment in the project.

According to the Vietnam Oil and Gas Association, due to the lack of exploration capital, there is a serious imbalance between the increase in reserves and production output, the phenomenon of “spending on reserves”. Many key traditional oil fields contribute important output to Petrovietnam, after 20-30 years of exploitation such as Bach Ho, Su Tu, Rang Dong, Lan Tay, provide more than 500 million tons of oil equivalent after the exploitation stage. peak, current production is declining, requiring more investment in technology solutions to recover oil, additional drilling to exploit, while new fields are slowly put into operation due to lack of capital. and investment procedures. Besides, it is also necessary to study the terms that are suitable and attractive enough for investors in the current context.

In addition, Petrovietnam also aims to promote solving other existing problems such as: Handling difficulties related to 2 key oil and gas projects, Block B gas project and Blue Whale gas project. to be able to put these two mines into operation as planned; Early approve the operation mechanism for Oil and Gas Block 01/97&02/97 and contract conditions for Oil and Gas Block 01/17&02/17 in order to continue to invest in increasing output from these Blocks; it is necessary to change the conditions of division between the State and the Contractor in order to bring into the development of findings of marginal economic benefit; Decentralize Petrovietnam to approve a number of technical changes compared to the field development plan approved by the Prime Minister (thick knitting drilling, body cutting drilling, opening additional seams …).

In the current situation of sharply decreasing gas mobilization for electricity, affecting the development of gas fields as well as gas import projects and gas power development according to the national energy strategy, EVN needs to commit to gas consumption. long term to be able to develop new gas fields; Prioritize mobilizing electricity from gas to increase exploitation and increase condensate output.

At the Petrovietnam Exploration and Production Conference in 2021, General Director of Petrovietnam Le Manh Hung emphasized, TDKT is always focused and a top priority at Petrovietnam. The Group is always ready in terms of resources and potential to implement breakthrough and drastic economic and financial plans.

Source: Minh Ngọc Vietnamnet