Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery Methods conference held at KFU

The event took place on 27 and 28 May.

The two-day event brought together more than 150 specialists from Russia, China, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Among the participants were representatives of the academic community, employees of oilfield service and oil production companies, including such industry giants as Gazprom Neft, Tatneft, SIBUR, SNF Vostok, as well as Chinese Startwell (Beijing) Technology Co. and Vietsovpetro (Vietnam). The focus of attention was on topical issues and prospects for the development of chemical enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) methods.

Kazan University was represented at the event by Vice-Rector for Earth Sciences Danis Nurgaliev, Director of the Technology Park of Small Tonnage Chemical Technologies Mikhail Varfolomeev, as well as Deputy Director of the Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies (IGPT) Ildus Chukmarov, and others.

The key event of the first day was the plenary session “The role of companies and regional authorities in the development of technologies for enhanced oil recovery”. Timur Khalitov, Director of the Science and Technology Foundation of the Republic of Tatarstan, made a report on consortiums in petrochemistry. Bulat Ganiev, Head of the Field Development Department of the Tatneft-Production structural unit of Tatneft, spoke about practical aspects of innovation implementation. Alexey Vashkevich, Deputy Head of the Exploration and Production Technological Development of Gazprom Neft, familiarized the audience with the corporate strategies of technological development. Svetlana Girfanova, Director of SIBUR’s Oil and Gas Refining and Production Division, presented new approaches in oil refining. Irina Gvelesiani, General Director of SNF Vostok LLC, informed about international experience in applying chemical methods of enhanced oil recovery.

In an interview with the journalist, Anatoly Zamriy, General Director of the Intersectoral Expert Analytical Center of the Union of Oil and Gas Producers of Russia, said, “I would like to thank the conference organizer – Kazan Federal University. Development of new technologies is one of the priorities for the state and business. The companies and specialists gathered here create the very scientific novelty that moves our industry forward. Kazan is an ideal place for such a dialog. Tatarstan is rightfully leading in innovative development, largely due to the coordinated work of the republic’s leadership, scientists and industrialists.”

Farid Gubaidullin, Associate Professor of the Department of Petroleum Engineering of KFU, told about the oil recovery enhancement reagents created at KFU. His report was entitled “Monomer-polymer complexes and surfactant compositions for increasing the productivity of oil reservoirs”.

Ildus Chukmarov made presentations on Kazan Federal University and the Center for Advanced Training. He focused on the courses and internships organized by the center.

The lecture “Improving the efficiency of IOR using different reagents: world experience and new developments” was delivered by Mikhail Varfolomeev, and the methodological approach to the study and comparative characterization of chemical reagents used in flow-reducing technologies was presented by Sergey Nazarychev, Research Associate of the Laboratory of Enhanced Oil Recovery.

“The conference has become a traditional meeting place not only for representatives of the academic community, but also for the industry, in particular oil production and oilfield service companies, as well as enterprises producing chemicals and equipment for the industry. This year we heard a lot of reports on interesting topics related to the development of new chemistry, new materials and oil recovery technologies,” said Dr Varfolomeev. “The average recovery factor of black gold is about 35-40 percent. Chemical methods of oil recovery enhancement are one of the main ways to extract hard-to-recover oil.”

According to the scientist, this year’s conference was dedicated to the Energy Strategy of the Russian Federation for 2050, approved in April 2025.

“In this strategy there is a block related to enhanced oil recovery technologies, one of them is chemical EOR,” Mikhail Varfolomeev specified. “Today much attention is paid to the creation of full-fledged chains – from development to production and implementation, as well as the formation of consortiums between different organizations, which will accelerate the development of these chains.”

Phi Manh Tung, deputy head of the oil and gas development department of Vietsovpetro, a joint Russian-Vietnamese enterprise, said of his company, “The shelf field we are developing jointly with your country is called White Tiger. We have to maintain the oil production volume, so the selection of chemical methods of oil recovery enhancement is of great importance to us. We have come to learn from your experience in the implementation of projects in the field of chemical EOR, as well as to share our own. Besides, we are actively working on increasing oil recovery factor in our company. Almost all oil producing companies are now engaged in solving this urgent task, and we are no exception.”

Deputy Director for Science of ALTIM LLC Stanislav Karchevsky and his colleagues came from Ufa, “For the first time at this conference we visited three years ago as listeners, in the following years we made actual reports on the topic of mechanical destruction of polymer solutions. And today we are already demonstrating a device developed by our company to regulate the flow of polymer solution with low degradation characteristic for polymer flooding. When injecting the solution, the device does not create critical stresses, which are the main factor of polymer molecules rupture.”

Chen Jianqiao (China), Commercial Director of Startwell (Beijing) Technology Co, believes that the conference is a good platform for communication between representatives from different countries, “We were able to learn what interesting scientific research is being conducted in Russia, including at Kazan University, and also presented the achievements of our country. I would like to cooperate with IGPT in oil and gas. We see that our Russian colleagues rely on international achievements in their work, use the latest technologies and the latest equipment.”