PRINT THIS PAGE The (bigger) business development story in Russia
11/10/2006. Source:Hart Energy Publishing. Thomas D. Nastas, President, Innovative Ventures Inc.
The Soviets created many technologies widely used by the energy industry, says Thomas D. Nastas, president at Innovative Ventures, in this article from Realizing Russian Potential. Is Russia poised to make new contributions? The author goes on to look what is the go-forward strategy to incorporate these innovations to create competitive advantage in local and international markets? For decades, Soviet scientists and Russian developers pioneered new technology for the petroleum industry. In 1917, Russian scientist Armais Arutunov developed the first electrical submergible pump. In the 1950s, 43 horizontal wells were drilled in the Soviet Union, one of the most ambitious drilling efforts for the untested technology. Building on the work of U.S. scientist Lester C. Uren, Alexander Grigoryan put theory into practice by branching the borehole, and in doing so, he became known as the father of multilateral technology. In 1953, the Soviets drilled a main bore in the Bashkiria field (Bashkortostan today) with nine laterals and a horizontal reach of 136m (446ft). Although the well was 1 1/2 times more costly than other wells, it penetrated the pay thickness 5 1/2 times better and generated 17 times more oil per day. During the next 20-plus years, the Soviets drilled 110 multilateral wells with Grigoryan drilling more than 30 wells.
These are just a few of the contributions Soviet science has made to the industry. Other Russian technologies widely used include in-situ combustion and vertical seismic profiling (VSP), invented in 1957 by Soviet geophysicist Evsei Galperin of the Soviet Institute of Earth Physics. His first VSP profiles showed the structure of seismic wave fields, including shear waves and polarization effects. After almost 50 years of improvements by Western developers (led by Bob Hardage of Phillips Petroleum), VSP is firmly planted in the toolkits of geophysicists around the world.
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The business of Innovative Ventures Inc. is venture capital, and we provide financial institutions with advisory services to invest in international and emerging market venture capital funds. We develop markets and entrepreneurs since the emerging countries lack the quality and quantity of companies for venture capital investment.
This article originally appeared in Realizing Russian Potential published by Hart Energy Publishing, LLP, in December 2005. Used with permission.
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