Abstract

The Transition to market economy conditions after collapse of the Soviet Union brought about creation of private-owned small- and medium-sized oil companies. Tatarstan led the list and in a rather short period, thirty-four small oil companies, or using the Western term, independent oil companies, were set up in the Republic of Tatarstan. Owing to the support provided by the Republic’s Government and the TATNEFT Company, small oil companies successfully developeed and have attained the planned oil production levels, contributing, thus, significantly to the economic development of the Republic of Tatarstan. For more than two decades, the small oil companies have gained a vast hands-on experience in development of fields with troublesome geological settings and in production of unconventional reserves. The accumulated successful oil production experience and the in-house commercially used innovation technologies suggest a long-term (up to 2050s and longer) sustainable development of small oil fields with complicated subsurface geology. This invaluable experience is worth a particular attention, examining, and extension.

Key words:

marginal fields, hard-to-recover reserves, oil recovery factor, enhanced oil recovery methods (EOR), physico-chemical EOR, physical EOR, TEOR, gas flooding, horizontal wells, multilateral wells, branched wells, horizontal sidetracks, hydraulic fracturing, well spacing pattern, replacement of reserves

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