The drilling is a part of a federal project, which aims to determine effective technologies to develop hard-to-recover reserves.
Gazprom Neft-funded operations also intend to study unconventional hydrocarbon reserves of the Bazhenov formation.
The company extracted approximately 30m of core samples from the Bazhenov formation, and sent it for analysis at the All-Russian Research Geological Oil Institute.
In addition to providing insights into the long-term production prospects from these deposits, the analysis will determine optimum strategies for their development.
The Bazhenov formation is estimated to host as much as 170 billion tons of oil reserves.
In March 2014, the Russian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry and the Tomsk Oblast Administration have partnered to develop technologies for the exploration and production of hard-to-recover reserves.
Gazprom Neft is a member of the Tomsk association, the Research and Development Centre for Innovation in Subsoil Use, which is responsible for the implementation of the project.
