Every year on March 22, the world celebrates Water Day, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993 to draw attention to the importance of sustainable water consumption. The topic of Water Day 2022 is “Underground Water: Making the Hidden Visible”.

Underground water is the most important source of freshwater. Aquifers play a significant role in maintaining the Earth’s water balance. They enable all ecosystems to function and also shape the climate. Maintaining adequate levels of underground water and its quality is a major global challenge.

Rosneft reaffirmed its strategic commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals in 2018, among them Clean Water and Sanitation and Responsible Consumption and Production. The Company has been consistently reducing the volume of water withdrawn from underground sources for many years. Rosneft also implements major environmental projects that increase the efficiency of water management at production facilities and the quality of water in the supply systems of the cities and towns in the regions of operation. Overall, the proportion of recycled and reused water in the Company’s operations has exceeded 90% over the past seven years.

The Company implements environment-oriented projects, including the construction and upgrading of wastewater treatment plants and biological wastewater treatment plants. LLC RN-Sea Terminal Nakhodka commissioned the 3rd start-up complex of the industrial and storm water treatment plants as part of the upgrade in March 2021. Last September, the enterprise completed construction and installation works on the 2nd start-up complex and the facility was already in operation in February 2022. Upgrading wastewater treatment plants at the Company’s refineries is in progress.

Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim, the largest biological treatment plant in Eurasia, with a capacity of 84,000 cubic metres per day, has been commissioned and is successfully operating in Bashkortostan to treat industrial, storm water and municipal wastewater from Bashneft’s refineries and 66 enterprises in Ufa. The facilities have significantly improved the quality of wastewater purification and increased the use of purified water in the manufacturing process, which reduces the amount of water taken from water bodies by 2.5 times.

In oil production projects, the Company improves water management efficiency by using water injection technology to maintain overburden pressure and enhance oil recovery, resulting in minimal water withdrawal from surface water bodies. Orenburgneft has reduced water intake from natural springs at the Lebyazhinskoe field by 28%. Thanks to the measures taken over 2.5 years to increase the level of re-used water in the production process, the volume of “makeup”* water consumption decreased by more than 3 million cubic metres.

In 2021, the Company released more than 120 million fry in the Komi Republic, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar and Perm Territories, Murmansk, Tyumen and Samara Regions, the Republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District—Yugra, including the fry of particularly valuable Siberian sturgeon, Atlantic and Black Sea salmon, broad whitefish, whitefish and muksun, to preserve biodiversity and replenish aquatic bioresources.

*”Makeup” water is fresh water taken from the surface and underground water bodies, including supplied by the third parties under the agreements of water supplies. It is used for production, practical and other needs of the Company.

Rosneft
Information Division
March 22, 2022