The largest Ukraine’s oil and gas producer Ukrnafta announced plans to conduct 18 operations of powerful hydraulic fracturing by the year end ear, which will significantly increase oil and gas production. Since early 2018, the company has conducted 9 such operations, the company informs, NV reports.

In Ukrnafta, they explained that they had conducted the operations on their own. The company involved its own specialists and a hydraulic fracturing fleet, including three explosive units, a cementing unit and other equipment.

In the first half of the year, Ukrnafta conducted a number of successful operations in the Western oil and gas region. At the end of summer, the PHF operations began to be carried out on fields of the Eastern oil and gas region.

Hydraulic fracturing operations, conducted in June-July 2018 on the wells 110 of Strutinsky and 179 Severo-Dolinskoye fields have already allowed increasing daily average oil production by 25 tons of oil per day. The additional oil production in July-August 2018 amounted to more than 1 thousand tons. In other wells, the process of developing and selecting the optimum operating mode is being completed, the company said.

The powerful hydraulic fracturing (PHF) is one of the most effective methods of intensifying hydrocarbon production. According to this method, a fluid is injected into the well, which breaks the formation - the rock with many cracks that are interconnected. The task of hydraulic fracturing is to increase these cracks and create new ones that increase the flow of hydrocarbons in the well. When the oil and gas layer is ruptured, the proppant (granules 0.4 to 1.2 mm in diameter) is pumped in it, and it does not allow closing the cracks for long time.

Ukrnafta produces 64.8% of oil and 5.1% of gas in Ukraine. The company owns 30 drilling rigs, 1,926 oil wells and 168 gas wells. 50% + 1 share of Ukrnafta belong to Naftogaz of Ukraine.