The Russian Bakken -- Re-Visited

Updates

September 26, 2021:

• The Bazenhov: reader brings it up again.
  

• wiki;
• from 2014, from Reuters;

January 3, 2017: Gazprom Neft strives to go it alone in Russian shale oil. 

There is nothing outwardly remarkable about oil well cluster number 933 in the South Priobskoye field: Siberian marshland stretches out to the horizon, dotted with birds and drilling rigs. But beneath the surface, this spot is at the forefront of the Russian oil industry’s efforts to deliver a shale energy revolution that could be just as transformative as the one witnessed in the US over the past 15 years.

Gazprom Neft, the oil division of state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, set a Russian record in the summer by completing 30 hydraulic fractures along the length of one well at cluster 933.

June 2, 2015: update. References the Bakken. 

December 8, 2012: an update on the Bazhenov, and comparing it to the Bakken. Quite a story. 

Original Post

There have been a lot of headlines at Rigzone, others regarding Rosneft, most of which I don't follow. My mistake. Here's a story I missed:

Bazhenov’s geology is similar to North Dakota’s Bakken shale, where crude oil production has more than doubled in two years.  

As part of the alliance with Exxon, Moscow-based Rosneft in April said it acquired a 30 percent stake in a Texas tight oil project to gain experience with the technology.  

“The in-place potential is enormous -- billions of barrels,” Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson said in an April 18, 2012, conference call. “The real issue is can we develop it in a cost effective way? -- same as the issue we have with tight oil and unconventional resources in North America.”  

Exxon will be able to book reserves in a mature oil province without taking on the exploration or environment risk it faces in its offshore projects with Rosneft, which will require an initial $3.2 billion investment to explore in the Arctic Kara Sea and the Black Sea.  

While Exxon and European rivals such as Statoil ASA have generated more media interest in their projects to develop virgin deposits in the Arctic by the 2020s, fracking Soviet-era Siberian wells may yield crude sooner.

I posted a story about the Bazhenov in June, 2012.

I believe "Bazhenov" (pronounced "Baa-ze-nof" with stress on first syllable, least stress on middle syllable) is Russian for "Bakken."

Just joking.