Russia and Norway will sign an agreement on collecting seismic data along the delimitation line on the continental shelf in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said in a statement following Russian-Norwegian consultations.

The document will outline an action plan for both countries to develop oil and gas deposits in the Arctic.

The bilateral consultations were held at the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and chaired by Nuritdin Inamov, the head of the international relations department. He said relations between the two countries were long-standing and consistently developing.

Inamov said joint efforts in the Arctic were an area of long-term bilateral cooperation. "This concerns both the environmental protection of the Arctic and exploring its natural resources with due consideration for strict environmental requirements," he said. Inamov added that the two countries' willingness to sign the agreement confirmed their interest in long-term cooperation.

During the bilateral consultations, experts from the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, the Foreign Ministry, the Federal Security Service's coastal guards, the Rosneft oil company, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and the Norwegian Embassy in Moscow coordinated the text of the agreement.

Now the draft agreement will have to be discussed in each country and then work will be continued with due account for the specifics of national legal proceedings. The document is highly important and will have to be signed at the intergovernmental level.