UN experts have praised Russia's well-substantiated Arctic shelf-expansion bid, due to be discussed at a meeting of the relevant sub-commission of the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in New York City this coming March, Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dmitry Kobylkin told RIA Novosti.

"Sub-commission members are to meet in March and August, with First Deputy Minister Denis Khramov attending the March meeting. During preliminary discussions, experts' representatives praised the well-substantiated Russian bid," Kobylkin said.

Speaking at the Federation Council in November 2018, Kobylkin noted that members of the above-mentioned UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf were unlikely to approve the expansion of Russia's continental shelf in the current international situation.

In 2001, Russia staked its claims for a hydrocarbon-rich shelf sector that includes the Lomonosov Ridge as well as the Mendeleyev Rise, but its bid was turned down due to insufficient geological data. New expeditions to the North Pole were organized over a period of ten years which included geological and geophysical research in the Arctic Ocean, studying the geological nature of the Mendeleyev Rise and the Lomonosov Ridge and also conducting bathymetric photography.

These regions contain 4.9 billion metric tons of hydrocarbons (in terms of fuel equivalent). According to the UN Convention, any country wishing to expand its continental shelf should prove the continental nature of adjacent geological structures on the seabed.