The Galkynysh field, which brings Turkmenistan into the ranks of the nations – largest possessors of hydrocarbon resources, opens up wide opportunities for investment cooperation.
Several speakers on the first day of the International Forum on Attracting Foreign Investments in the Energy Sector of Turkmenistan, underway held these days in Dubai, shared on upgraded geological characteristics of the field revealed in recent years, its future role in shaping the architecture of sustainable energy supply on the Asian continent.
Summarizing the speech by Batyr Amanov, the State Minister-Chairman of the State Concern “Turkmengaz”, at the plenary session of the Forum, the following key moments can be deduced:
- Turkmenistan is the largest player in the Asian oil and gas market. The country’s hydrocarbon resources are estimated at more than 71 billion tons of oil equivalent, including 20 billion tons of oil and more than 50 trillion cubic meters of gas.
- Turkmenistan has a strong resource base. The reserves of the Galkynysh field, together with the deposits of the adjacent Garakel and Yashlar fields, are estimated at 27.4 trillion cubic meters of gas.
- The development of the field involves several stages of development, each envisaging projects focused on long-term cooperation.
- In particular, the II Phase of the development of Galkynysh will allow increasing the supply of Turkmen gas supplies to China through the fourth line (Line D) of the transnational gas pipeline Central Asia-China. The total volume of gas export from Turkmenistan to China will reach 65 billion cubic meters per year, an increase of 25 billion cubic meters due to Galkynysh resources.
- The III Phase of the Galkynysh field development will enable an important source of Turkmen energy supplies to the future Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India international gas pipeline in the amount of 33 billion cubic meters per year.
Irina Luryeva, head of the Laboratory of the Natural Gas Research Institute of the State Concern Turkmengaz, and Stephen Wright, Technical director of the British audit consulting company GaffneyCline, provided a lot of technical information, perhaps well understood by a circle of industry specialists. Here are some key points from their presentations:
The area of the Galkynysh deposit exceeds 5,000 sq.km (almost one and a half times the area of Dubai). However, the exact area of the field in the south-east and north-west directions is still being clarified by drilling exploration wells.
The average reservoir thickness is 580 m. For comparison: This is approximately 70% of the height of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa Tower.
Static modeling prepared by GaffneyCline allowed to calculate the probabilistic range of initial estimates of Galkynysh gas reserves. The law case is 14.2 trillion cubic meters, base – 18.4 trillion cubic meters, high case – 21.2 trillion cubic meters.
The Galkynysh field will be developed in seven Phases. Currently, the I Phase is in pilot industrial operation, where production is carried out from 51 production wells. There are more than 10 wells in active drilling.
The average design flow rate of gas is 1.5 million cubic meters per day, with a potential flow rate of wells over a long period of operation – more than 2 million cubic meters. Currently, Chuanqing Drilling Company of CNPC has completed drilling three new wells. The original design of these wells made ensured the daily flow rate of these wells in the amount of 3 million cubic meters.
The production period for each stage is 30 years.
It is assumed that the annual gas production at the field will reach 200 billion cubic meters.
Cumulative produced gas from field startup to end March 2022 is 132 billion cubic meters.
Six further identified development phases expected to recover ~7.9 Tsm3 including I Phase.
Currently, negotiations are ongoing with international partners on the II and III Phases, and negotiations on other Phases are yet to commence.
The strategy of phased development of the field will allow regulating the investment flow, as well as taking into account the technological experience of previous stages when developing each next phase.
There are still many areas for improving the applied technologies at the Galkynysh field – these are gas dynamic studies in dense carbonates and reefs, drilling technology and construction of high-yield wells with a depth of about 5000 m in conditions of abnormally high reservoir pressures, design of equipment for collecting and treating gas for transportation.
Turkmenistan welcomes any investment, innovative, environmentally friendly technological proposals from foreign companies. ///nCa, 26 April 2023