Ice Conditions As a Main Criteria When Choosing an Alternative of Oil And Gas Unloading From Offshore Fields of Sakhalin Island

The total area of the Sakhalin offshore which is the more investigated and oil and gas perspective part of the Russian territory in the Far - East region constitutes about twenty thousand square kilometers. Exploratory drilling on the Sakhalin offshore has been conducted since 1975. As a result of many exploration several oil and gas as well as gas condensate fields are discovered the largest of which are located on the offshore of the north- eastern Sakhalin coast. The total hydrocarbon resources of the north- eastern part of Sakhalin island are estimated at about 1 billion tons for oil and condensate and 1.2 trillion of cubic meters for gas (Bogdanchikov, Astafiev, 1997). High level of procedure and reliability when estimating these reserves should be noted moreover, the fact that the reliable base of resources on the Sakhalin offshore has been prepared for development should also be stated. The potential oil and gas consumers in domestic market are the Russian regions in the Far East which at present are acute short of fuel (about 10 M tons of reference fuel in volume) (Bogdanchikov, Astafiev, 1997). fu foreign market the main hydrocarbon consumers are first of all the parties of the Asia-Pacific ocean region. As to the "Sakhalin-2" project the first crude delivery from the block of offshore fields is planned in 1999 and under the "Sakhalin-I" project it is planned in 2001. Under the "Sakhalin-I" and "Sakhalin-2" projects fields will be developed in accordance with the Federal law of the Sharing Production Agreements (Federal…. 1995). fu this case each partner of the particular project will have a right for independent using its share of the produced resources. At present several alternatives of produced production unloading to consumers are being discussed.