Rusgasalliance, a joint venture of Gazprom and Rusgazdobycha, has launched the Semakovskoye gas field in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area. The field's gas reserves exceed 320 bn m3, says TASS, citing a joint release by Gazprom and Rusgazdobycha.

The first stage of development will see Rusgasalliance extract 7.5 bn m3 of gas per year from the Semakovskoye field, with gas output set to reach the target level of 14.2 bn m3 per year during the second stage.

"With the launch of the Semakovskoye field, we lay a solid technological groundwork for developing a new production cluster in the region. I'm talking about the Parusovye fields, which are located within Rusgasalliance's perimeter, and several other fields. All of them are an essential part of the large-scale resource base that will allow us to supply gas to our consumers for decades to come and, of course, expand the gas distribution networks in Russia," said Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, whose words are quoted in the report.

Most of the Semakovskoye field reserves are located in the waters of the Kara Sea. To access them without expensive maritime infrastructure, it has been decided to build wells from the shore with a large horizontal displacement, the report says.