KCA Deutag, Salym, Russia
The Salym project is developing oilfields in a remote, sub-Arctic area of Western Siberia. Production began in 2004 and was 150,000 barrels a day by March 2009. It is operated by Salym Petroleum Development NV (SPD) a 50:50 joint venture between Shell and OAO Evikhon.
Approximately 800 different companies have been involved in the project, ranging from construction companies building pipelines, to contractors doing drilling or providing services like catering or cleaning.
From the start, SPD has been determined to meet technical, environmental and social standards equivalent to our own. It holds regular seminars for contractors who wish to tender for work, in which it explains its HSSE and other standards and discusses with them the capabilities they must develop to comply. It is also committed to helping create local employment and to further developing technical service companies in the oil and gas sector in Russia. To date, 85% of the project’s contracts (by value) have been awarded to Russian companies. Nearly 13% of companies used come from the local area.
Local companies’ experience with operating in harsh, sub-arctic conditions and Shell’s global technical skills have also proved to be a winning combination. For example, combining experience from our “Drilling the Limit” programme with local knowledge helped the project’s Russian drilling contractors reduce the average time taken to drill wells from 30 days down to 11. A number of the Russian contractors who worked on Salym are now competing internationally. For example, Russian drill bits have been successfully tested on Shell JV projects in the Netherlands. They will also be used on projects in the USA and Middle East. Another Salym contractor is supplying pipes to oil and gas operations in both Oman and Nigeria.
