The company also revealed its further plans for the project.

The field development is being carried out by CJSC Vankorneft (Vankorneft), a subsidiary of Rosneft.

It may be recalled that in 2003, the development license for the Vankor field was obtained by Rosneft as the result of a public bid on the London Stock Exchange to buy shares of an Anglo-Siberian Oil Company.

Currently, daily oil production at the field is 18,000 tones, or 130,000 bpd, which will increase to 30,000 tones or 220,000 bpd by the end of 2009. In 2009, total production is expected to reach 3 million tones, or 22 million barrels.

The Vankor field will supply Rosneft with 25.5 million tons, or 510,000 barrels, per day of oil when it reaches peak production in 2014. This is equivalent to nearly one-quarter of the state owned company’s output in 2008.

The crude oil produced at the field will be transported via Rosneft’s newly built Vankor-Purpe pipeline in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, which will be fed into Russian state-owned OAO AK Transneft’s trunk pipeline at a junction near Purneftegaz’s fields. The 556 km Vankor–Purpe pipeline has an annual capacity of up to 30 million tones, 600 thousand barrels per day.

Oil pumped from the Vankor field will be supplied to China via the East Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline (ESPO), which is set to be complete by 2010, and the primary feedstock for the petrochemical complex planned for construction in the Russian Far East.

Upon completion of ESPO pipeline, Rosneft will be able to reach peak production at the Vankor field, which would allow accelerating exploration of the 14 licensed blocks adjacent to Vankor.

The field would also supply crude oil to the Baltic Pipeline System 2 (BTS-2) pipeline, which will bypass Belarus in delivering oil to the Baltic port of Ust-Luga.

In another development in 2008, China agreed to lend $15 billion to Rosneft and another $10 billion to Transneft in exchange for supplies of 300 million tons of oil over 20 years, a large part of which will be produced from the Vankor field.

Overall tax payments during project lifetime will amount to RUB4.5 trillion at an oil price of $60 per barrel.

The Vankor field development comprises a total of 1,685 infrastructure facilities, including an oil treatment line having 7 million tones annual capacity, reservoirs to hold 140,000 cubic meters of crude oil and a 210 MW gas turbine power station. GE Oil & Gas supplied eight gas turbine generators based on MS5001PA gas turbines for the gas turbine power station at Vankor field.

As of June 2009, the pipeline and other infrastructure needed for the launch of the field were completed and testing of the installed equipment was in process.

In 2008, production drilling at the field totaled 142,100 meters and 31 production wells were drilled. Work continued on construction of the Vankor–Purpe pipeline (408 km of a total 578 km had been built by the end of the year), as well as on construction of an oil treatment unit and oil pumping stations.

In 2007, production drilling at the Vankor field totaled 78,400 meters. Rosneft drilled the Vankor field primarily with horizontal wells, 75% of which had smart completion. Rosneft started oil production at the Vankorskaya-9 well to ensure adequate fuel supplies to drilling crews.

The Vankor field, discovered in 1988, is located in the north of Eastern Siberia (the Krasnoyarsk region) close to the border with the Western Siberia (Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District) and at a 600-km distance from the Purneftegaz assets.

It may be recalled that in March 2005, SNC-Lavalin received a $13 million contract for concept validation and front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the Vankor field. The contract was to validate, and then develop a plan for a 300,000 bbls/day central processing plant, a 775 km pipeline, a terminal and marine offloading facilities.

Currently, the Vankor field has estimated recoverable reserves of 520 million tones, or 3.8 billion barrels of oil and 95 billion cubic meters of gas.

Capital expenditures of Vankorneft for the period 2006 – first quarter of 2009 were $4.4 billion.