Rustam Minnikhanov: Yelabuga summit transforms into a national oil industry conference

On July 7, under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, the Tatarstan oil companies CEOs held the tenth annual meeting on an island in the Yelabuga region. Attendees were the State Advisor Mintimer Shaimiev, State Council Chairman Farid Mukhametshin, executives from the Russian Energy and Natures Ministries, heads of local ministries, departments, territorial branches of the federal authorities, and of municipalities. The meeting discussed issues relating to the Tatarstan’s oil industry current state and prospects.

First, the participants were introduced to mobile expositions of the Tatneft and RITEK companies demonstrating modern technologies and prospects of new deposits workouts, including on-line demonstrations of the Tatneft rig crew workings in Syria.

While opening the meeting, Rustam Minnikhanov recommended to pay special attention to a number of vital issues. In particular, a detailed analysis is required for the structure of the reserves of Tatarstan oil, as the share of hard-to-recover part is increasing. This calls for new technologies which is expensive. Thus, arranging state support for the Tatarstan’s oil branch on the Federal level needs to be sped up, said Tatarstan President. "Taxes on flowing and viscous oil cannot be the same," Rustam Minnikhanov noted, adding that privileges need to be granted for developing smaller oilfields.

He went on to draw attention to the necessity to analyse causes behind the many small oil companies’ decreased production and the manifold difference in profit taxes various SOC pay.

The Tatarstan energy minister Ilshat Fardiev reported on oil recovery prospects, saying 72.3 percent of the remaining recoverable oil reserves in Tatarstan were hard-to-recover. With this in view, the long-term task is to keep up production in the Republic at 32 million tonnes a year. In the first half of 2010 Tatarstan recovered 16.1 million tonnes of oil, 80 percent of which was extracted by Tatneft, the minister said.

The OJSC Tatneft Director General Shafgat Takhautdinov reported on the company’s performance in 2009 and the first half of 2010. For the 6 months of 2010, Tatneft worked out 12.816 million tonnes of oil, while for the same period in 2009 the output amounted to 12.8 million tonnes. The company has since 2000 increased oil production by 13 percent, the main strategic task being to stabilise the output which has to be done through implementing new technologies. Tatarstan should set up an innovative platform to test and distribute new oil recovery techniques, the CEO proposed.

Other topics discussed by the meeting were the Tatarstan’s draft strategy of small oil companies development until 2020, tax incentives in developing small deposits and deposits with difficult oil, and implementing new energy saving technologies.

In conclusion, Rustam Minnikhanov recognized the tradition of holding "oil summits" as productive. As he said, a kind of club has grown up into a platform for a forum discussing problems vital for the whole oil industry of the country.

Then President of the Republic of Tatarstan presented state awards to oil branch workers.

At the same time, the State Counsellor of the Republic of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev and the Head of the Director Board of OJSC Bank Zenith Aleksey Sokolov signed the Memorandum on the banking group ZENITH participation in restoration of historical and cultural monuments the ancient town of Bolgar and the island town of Sviyazhsk in the Republic of Tatarstan.

The concluding event was a meeting on realization of joint complex projects of the Kazan (Privolzhsky) Federal University and oil and petrochemical companies. The meeting was held by Rustam Minnikhanov.