Issues of mine surveying support in the process of oil and gas production have been discussed at Kazan Federal University

Issues of mine surveying support in the process of oil and gas production have been discussed at Kazan Federal University

The Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies of the Kazan Federal University hosted a scientific and practical conference “Actual issues of design, creation and operation of geodynamic polygons at oil and gas fields. Innovations in the field of mine surveying support in the process of oil and gas production”.

The institute brought together managers and specialists from the following leading industry companies, research centers and representatives of various authorities: Rosneft PJSC, Gazprom Neft PJSC, Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences , State Unitary Enterprise“ Center for Information Technologies of the Republic of Tatarstan ”, Privolzhsky Department of Rostechnadzor, Tehnokauf LLC , Eridan LLC, Scaning LLC. The organizers of the meeting: IGPT KFU, Center for Advanced Training, Quality Management and Marketing, PJSC Tatneft and NPK Geopoligon KFU.

The conference raises two major topics that exist today in the field of mine surveying support of oil and gas production processes. In addition, special attention was paid to the issues of legal regulation of the activities at geodynamic polygons within oil and gas fields and mine surveying support of oil and gas production processes. The meeting will result in regulatory documents that will be presented at the next meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council of Rostechnadzor with the aim of amending the federal legislation in the field of mine surveying support for oil production.

“When developing a hydrocarbon field, geodynamic safety is prescribed in all regulatory documents, which, of course, protects the subsoil user. For this purpose, geodynamic polygons are created to monitor the deformation of the earth’s surface. This is an extremely necessary work, however unfortunately to date certain regulatory documents are still missing. The other day I took part in a meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council of Rostechnadzor, which raised issues of updating the regulatory framework. Rosneft took the initiative to contact the subsoil users, and together with the KFU, the Institute of Earth Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Perm Institute to develop these regulatory documents,” said Ildar Zalyalov, Chief surveyor of NK Rosneft.

The meeting participants repeatedly noted the importance joint work of both companies and research and educational centers in the field of introducing new innovative methods. Chief surveyor of PJSC Tatneft Rustam Sakhautdinov noted that such work is already underway and the major projects are being successfully implemented: “The mine and geodetic surveys are urgently needed by the oil and gas industry, and the topic of geodynamic polygons is still relevant today.  Today’s event has several goals: acquaintance, building relationships and implementing joint projects. It should be noted that we have been working with Kazan Federal University for many years. This is both new developments and personnel development, and so, Ildus Chukmarov, Director of the Center for Advanced Training, IGPT, has been helping us out and educating our employees for many years.”

Kazan Federal University implements a large number of projects together with PJSC Tatneft in the field of geodesy and surveying.  Only this year three large projects were implemented.

“For the current year, there was carried out measuring the magnetic declination of the Earth for drilling wells, a project is being implemented on a flexible design approach – wells pads design, which significantly reduce costs and improve the quality of drilling. At the premises of KFU, managers and specialists of the surveying service are trained annually under the advanced training programs. In addition, the small innovative enterprise “NPK Geopoligon KFU” successfully works on the request of PJSC Tatneft,” said Danis Nurgaliev, Vice-rector for Research at KFU, Director of IGPT.

During the conference, there were also actively discussed the issues of advanced training. The presentation was made by the Deputy Director of IGPT, Director of CATQMM Ildus Chukmarov, who presented the meeting participants about topical issues of staffing for the mine surveying services of oil and gas producing enterprises, new technologies of distance education and advanced developments of CATQMM.  Effective cooperation between KFU and PJSC Tatneft became an excellent example. “In the past two years alone, 97 employees of the company have been trained at the CATQMM under the “Mine Surveying” retraining program. It is noteworthy that the program was implemented on the job in accordance with the requirement of the customer. In-person sessions were held at the Training Center of Tatneft, Almetyevsk. Another successful project is the “ArcGIS for managers and specialists of mine surveying services of oil and gas companies” advanced training program, which was conducted by Inna Chernova, Associate Professor of the Department of Geophysics and Geoinformation Technologies of IGPT, at the Kazan-GIS-Studio Training Center.  Our contribution to the development of the company’s personnel was honored with commendation letter on behalf of the Chief Surveyor of the company Rustam Sakhautdinov,” said Ildus Chukmarov. It should be noted that Oleg Gorbunov, Head of Surveying and Mining Activities, Department of Licensing and Subsoil Use of PJSC Gazprom Neft, expressed a desire to create a joint multimedia project using the capabilities of the IGPT’s Distance Education Projects Incubator.

Since 2011, NPK Geopoligon KFU has been developing and implementing satellite geodetic monitoring systems. The small innovative enterprise of KFU put into operation a satellite geodetic monitoring system at one of the bituminous fields of Tatneft, which allowed to perform automated monitoring of the field, determine the stability of the measurement points locations and ensure geodynamic safety.

“At the moment, at geodynamic sites, everything is solved by classical methods, which are often time consuming and expensive, and are not as informative as automated monitoring, which operates 24 hours a day,” said Ruslan Komarov, Director of NPK Geopoligon KFU.

The outcome of the conference was a round table during which participants shared their views on the reports and discussed further joint actions in the field of innovative development of mine surveying support for oil and gas production processes.