The Gorny MFK hosted the opening ceremony of the 3rd scientific and practical conference “Breakthrough Technologies in Exploration, Development and Production of Hydrocarbons”. Its participants were representatives of domestic and foreign specialized enterprises, scientific organizations and higher educational institutions. They gathered on one platform in order to present innovations that have prospects for implementation in production, or, on the contrary, to familiarize themselves with ideas that can improve the efficiency of subsoil use.
The forum was opened by Vladimir Litvinenko, Rector of the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University. In his speech he emphasized that Russia lags behind the leading countries of the world in terms of exploration drilling. He drew attention to the undeniable fact that the process of increasing mineral reserves cannot be considered solely from the economic point of view. After all, this is a state task that requires the introduction of high-tech technologies.
“In order to look confidently into tomorrow, we must include the reproduction of resources in the number of unconditional priorities. And realize that the purpose of this work is not to make profit, but to collect objective geological information about our subsoil for its subsequent interpretation and compilation of a unified database,” emphasized Vladimir Litvinenko.
He reminded that in the times of the USSR there was a clear rule: for every ton of oil produced, it was necessary to increase one and a half, and not at the expense of additional exploration of the flanks of existing fields, but at the expense of finding new ones. Today we are able to produce over 10 million barrels of liquid hydrocarbons per day, primarily thanks to Soviet geologists. But their modern colleagues obviously cannot boast of such successes.
“Why is geological exploration in our country, and in the world as a whole, stagnant now? The main reason is that we have very vague ideas about the processes occurring in the subsurface, especially at great depths. We don't even know much about the genesis of fossil fuels. For a long time it was believed that it was a product of decomposition of organic matter, i.e. the remains of living organisms that inhabited the Earth in previous geological epochs. But found deposits of deep-sea oil make us doubt this hypothesis. It is quite possible that the deposits are actually formed by the release of hydrogen and carbon atoms from magma and their reaction under the influence of high temperatures. This suggests that we still have a lot of new scientific knowledge to gain in order to be able to transform inert natural capital into social and natural capital in the future,” said the Rector.
He also urged business representatives to pay closer attention to the formation of their talent pool. Already in the first year of study, they should select and invite for introductory internships those students who plan to connect their lives with geology, mining or oil and gas industry. Today, according to Vladimir Litvinenko, even industries complaining about the shortage of engineers often do not actively recruit, taking a wait-and-see attitude.
“We should clearly realize that no one will protect our country and boost our economy except us. Therefore, we all need to learn to think strategically, in particular, to pay increased attention to the education of young people who will replace us. Who will be engaged tomorrow in organizing geological exploration works or directly working on drilling rigs if we let the issue of succession of generations go to waste? It is vital for us today to make maximum efforts in this direction so that modern young men and women, based on a clear ideology, go forward and progress together with the whole Russia", - summarized the Rector.
The plenary discussion was also attended by Oleg Kuznetsov, Executive Director of Khimprom, the main partner of the conference, Mikhail Sutyaginsky, Head of Titan Group of Companies, Pavel Slugin, First Deputy Head of Department of PJSC Gazprom, and other delegates. The topics of the breakout sessions, which will continue for the next three days, were innovations in the field of well construction and underground workover, application of modern chemical reagents and materials, new technologies in demand for drilling in Antarctica.