Energy cooperation contributes to Sino-Russian partnership

Russian company Udmurtneft celebrated 15 years of joint operations under the management of Russia's Rosneft and China's Sinopec last Wednesday.

In 2006, Sinopec, Asia's largest oil refiner, became the first Chinese company to participate in an oil and gas production project in Russia.

According to Andrey Topal, CEO of Udmurtneft, the company is the flagship of the oil industry in Udmurt republic in Central Russia. The annual oil output of the company there is about 6 million tons, which is 60 percent of the region's total oil production.

During the 15 years of collaboration between Rosneft and Sinopec, the company has produced more than 91 million tons of oil, and drilled more than 1,200 new wells.

Since the beginning of work under the management of Rosneft and Sinopec, Udmurtneft has started developing 10 new fields. During a 15-year period, the volume of production drilling has increased 6.3 times, while the square footage being exploited through drilling has increased eight times, Topal said.

He added that one of the key objectives of Udmurtneft has been to expand the resource base.

During the past 15 years, the total increase in recoverable oil reserves in the AB1 category has exceeded 109 million tons. Since 2006, due to exploration work, the increase in reserves has exceeded 70 million tons of oil. The total remaining recoverable reserves of the company make up about 200 million tons.

Today, Udmurtneft operates more than 3,800 wells.

Yang Huaiyi, general representative of Sinopec Group in Russia, said the joint work has contributed to the strengthening of the strategic partnership in the energy sector between Russia and China.

"Udmurtneft is an example of the first and most successful cooperation between Rosneft and Sinopec," Yang said.