In the first 3 quarters of 2014, the production of marketable hydrocarbons at Lukoil Overseas (the operator of Lukoil’s international upstream projects) reached 70 million barrels of oil equivalent – a 44 percent year-on-year increase and a new record for Lukoil’s upstream operations abroad. Oil production more than doubled to reach over 6.5 million tons in January-September 2014.
The launch of the West Qurna-2 field in Iraq this March was largely responsible for the record production increase. The field was producing 325 thousand barrels per day on average at the end of September and cumulative production exceeded 46 million barrels of oil (Lukoil’s share was 26.7 million barrels). The project is on the upswing: the initial field development phase – Mishrif Early Oil – will bring the production level to 400 thousand barrels per day. Moreover, the final investment decision has been made on the next phase – Mishrif full field development – which aims to bring the production level to 550 thousand barrels daily. The return of investments is going ahead as planned: as part of the cost recovery, four tankers were shipped in August and September 2014 with over 6 million barrels of oil.
Large gas projects are being implemented by Lukoil Overseas in Uzbekistan, where cumulative production has reached 25 billion cubic meters of gas. Lukoil Overseas, together with an international consortium, has initiated the implementation of Phase 2 of the Shah Deniz gas condensate shelf field in Azerbaijan, where Lukoil’s share of hydrocarbon production for the first 9 months of 2014 reached over 4,2 million barrels of oil equivalent.
