Rosneft to start exploratory drilling in the eastern Arctic in 2017
© RIA Novosti. Maksim Blinov

Rosneft to start exploratory drilling in the eastern Arctic in 2017

The oil company Rosneft, which owns 28 licenses on the Arctic shelf with total hydrocarbon resources of 34 billion tons of oil equivalent (BOE) intends to conduct exploratory drilling in the eastern Arctic this year.This has been reported by the news agency TASS citing the company's spokesperson On the continental shelf of the seas of the eastern Arctic, Rosneft owns licenses for nine sites in the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea.

According to the company's spokesperson, in 2016, Rosneft carried out an impressive volume of integrated geological and geophysical research in difficult Arctic and sub-Artic conditions. "Over 35,500 running kilometers of 2D seismic operations were completed, which exceeded the requirement of license obligations more than two fold. Also, the company carried out over 5,000 square kilometers of 3D seismic operations, which exceeds the license obligations by 2.5 times. Around 207, 000 square kilometers of aerogeophysical research were conducted. As a result of the research, 0.8 million square kilometers of the Russian arctic shelf were explored," the spokesperson  said. 

Between  2011-2016, Rosneft invested about 100 billion rubles in the development of the Arctic shelf, and the amount will increase several times over the next five years. The company is not going to reduce the pace of work to develop the Arctic shelf. "Rosneft's investment in the development of the Arctic shelf between 2012-2016 amounted to about 100 billion rubles. In the future, the company is not going to slow down the pace of work, and the investment will rise by several times compared to that of the past five years," the spokesperson said.

On the continental shelf of the seas of the eastern Arctic, Rosneft owns licenses for nine sites, which were received between 2013-2015, including five sites in the Laptev Sea — Ust-Oleneksky, Ust-Lensky, Anisinsko-Novosibirsky, Khatangsky and Pritaimyrsky, one site in the East Siberian Sea — Vostochno-Sibirsky 1, and three sites in the Chukchi Sea — Severo-Vrangelevsky 1, Severo-Vrangelevsky 2 and Yuzhno-Chukotsky.

According to the latest audit data, extracted resources of hydrocarbons on the shelf of the seas of the eastern Arctic, amount to over 12.7 billion tons of oil equivalent, without taking into account the Vostochno-Sibirsky 1, Khatangsky and Pritaimyrsky sites, which amount to 3.1 billion tons of oil equivalent, as  estimated by Rosneft.