Offshore staff
MOSCOW -- Gazprom has started construction of production wells on the Kirinskoye gas and condensate field offshore Sakhalin Island.
ThePolyarnaya Zvezda (Polar Star) semisubmerged drilling rig, delivered last year by the Vyborg Shipbuilding Plant, is performing the program, 28 km (17.4 mi) offshore in 90 m (295 ft) water depth in the Sea of Okhotsk.
Gazprom says Kirinskoye,part of the Sakhalin II project, is its top development priority offshore Sakhalin and will provide gas to consumers in Russia's Far East regions.
This will also be the first ever instance of gas production will on the Russian continental shelf via a subsea production system.
A manifold to receive the gas mix from the wells has been installed at the field and a pipeline has been laid to the coast to transport production.
Another pipeline has been laid which will take monoethylene glycol (MEG) from the coast to the field for use in preventing hydrate formation in the wells and the gas gathering system.
Gas flowlines and control cables are currently being trenched and process equipment is being installed.
Construction of the onshore processing facility (OPF) for gas treatment is under way. Hydro tests have started of a 139-km (86-mi) pipeline running from the OPF to the Sakhalin main compressor station at theSakhalin – Khabarovsk – Vladivostok gas transmission system (GTS). The OPF and the GTS are designed to receive gas from Kirinskoye and other developed fields under Sakhalin III.
Polyarnaya Zvezda  and its sister rig Severnoye Siyaniye (Northern Lights) are designed to withstand low temperatures, wave heights of up to 32 m (105 ft), and to drill gas and oil exploration and production wells down to 7,500 m (24,606 ft) subsurface in water depths varying from 70-500 m (229-1,640 ft).
8/6/2012
