Russian Energy Week 2025 has started in Moscow. At the session "Science in the Fuel and Energy Complex: from idea to series", Konstantin Prochukhan, Deputy Director General for Technological Development of "Oil Resource" (part of the "Kirillitsa" Group of Companies), Doctor of Technical Sciences, spoke about plans to use multifluid thermal technology for the extraction of hard-to-recover oil reserves (HTR reserves).

In his report, Konstantin Prochukhan emphasized the large reserves of high-viscosity oil which turned out to be beyond the reach of existing traditional technologies for increasing oil recovery.

"We are facing the dilemma — it is necessary to develop a new technology for these geological conditions. In our opinion, the multifluid thermal technology can become one of such promising methods",

— Konstantin Prochukhan noted.

The MTT is an advanced Russian technology for the development of hard-to-recover oil reserves which is being developed by the Scientific and Technological Center within Kirillitsa Group of Companies. This method is based on the principle of the effect of a coolant — water in a supercritical state — on an oil-bearing bed. As a result of this effect, qualitatively new physical processes are launched in the bed which favorably affect the production of highly viscous and hard-to-recover oil.

"At the first stage, we plan to develop and test a coolant generator with parameters of 400°C and 35 MPa which already produces supercritical water. This task has already been solved, including for the downhole part of the equipment, including a packer and thermal compensators. At the next stage, it is planned to strengthen the parameters of the equipment — more than 450 ° C and 40 MPa. Next, we will reach 550°C parameters to increase the coolant coverage of the bed zone,"

Konstantin Prochukhan said.

The Deputy Director General for Technological Development of "Oil Resource" noted the importance of forming a high-tech oilfield service based on the MTT.

"The oilfield service would allow not only to consolidate research results and verify mathematical models in the fields but also to ensure the sustainable replication of this technology in Russia: these are not only high-viscosity oils but also all classic HTR reserves and kerogen-containing beds,"

Konstantin Prochukhan added.