Gas In The Soviet Union
Authors: Ebel Robert E. 
Published: December 2007

This paper was prepared for the 48th Annual Fall Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, Oct. 1-3, 1973. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made. provided agreement to give proper credit is made. Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.

The natural gas reserves of the Soviet Union reportedly are the largest in the world. In the coming years these reserves will be exploited to meet domestic needs as well as export commitments in both Eastern and Western Europe. in addition, a number of U.S. firms are considering the possibility of projects for importing LNG from the Soviet Union. The largest of the untapped gas fields in the USSR are found in the permafrost, and are located on or near the Arctic Circle. Development of these fields and the construction of large diameter, long distance pipelines will require the infusion of Western pipelines will require the infusion of Western equipment and know-how.

Introduction

Industrial expansion, urban growth and increasing population and the accompanying air, land, and water pollution, and the degradation of our environment have increasingly become important social issues of our time. Not only does pollution intrude upon our esthetic values, but it as well has injurious effects upon human, animal, and plant life and it also reduces the productivity of capital. productivity of capital. Man and nature share in the contamination of our environment; man in his search for quality in life; nature by its very existence.

Industrial growth, upon which economic expansion has been based and which has been the foundation for improved quality in life, is directly dependent upon the utilization of increasingly greater amounts of energy. For the first part of this century, coal was the primary form of energy; now oil and gas have become the dominant fuels.

The emergence of natural gas as a preferential fuel and, moreover, petrochemical raw material, has caused commercial users and, indeed, whole nations to review anew the availability of this form of energy. The major producers of natural gas come quickly to mind: The United States and Canada, and the Netherlands. The technical and economic feasibility of moving large amounts of liquefied natural gas over great distances adds the crude oil exporting countries of the Middle East, North and West Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America to sources of supply we can now consider. We can judge the potential contribution of these sources because we have reasonable access to the required geological data, because of the long operating history of American and other foreign firms within their borders and, in general, because of the close ties we have established over the years.