Energy Ministry: Prospect drilling in Arctic seas to start in 2017 or later
© RIA Novosti. Alexey Danichev

Energy Ministry: Prospect drilling in Arctic seas to start in 2017 or later

Prospect drilling in the Barents and the Pechora seas may begin in 2017-2021 and in the Kara Sea in 2020-2021, Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov said at RAO/CIS Offshore 2015, an  international conference and exhibition for oil and gas resources development. Initial estimates put the total recoverable hydrocarbons in Russia's Arctic at 258 billion metric tons of oil equivalent, which account for 60 percent of all Russia's hydrocarbon resources, Rossiya Segodnya reports.

Currently, only Gazprom and Rosneft have the licenses to explore offshore fields. Oil is produced only at the Prirazlomnoye field in the Pechora Sea. According to the Energy Ministry's presentation, 33 licenses have been issued to each company for exploring in Barents and Kara seas.

Major Arctic oil fields include the Dolginskoye field in the Pechora Sea; the Murmanskoye, Shtokmanovskoye, Ledovoye, Ludlovskoye and Vostochno-Prinovozemelskoye fields in the Barents Sea; and the Pobeda, Rusanovskoye and Leningradskoye fields in the Kara Sea.