Russian Offshore Needs Investment

By Alexei Chesnokov, Oil&GasEurasia

Russia’s oil industry needs to invest in equipment manufacturing and coastal infrastructure if it wants to develop its offshore hydrocarbon resources. Vladimir Vovk, Head of the Division of Equipment and Technologies for Offshore Field Development at Gazprom's Department of Gas, Gas Condensate and Oil Production, made the point at a recent conference at VNIIGAZ, Gazprom’s R&D subsidiary.

The conference focused on issues of Russian offshore exploration and project development in the Arctic North and Sakhalin shelf.

Given ever increasing demand for gas, Vovk said it is important that Russia’s shelf be developed. He quoted reserve estimates for the Russian offshore at 100 trillion tons of fuel equivalent and noted that 76 percent of those offshore reserves are gas. Most of Russia’s shelf is as yet unexplored, though in the Pechora Sea, the Prirazlomnoye oilfield is in development, and plans for the Shtokman gas and gas condensate field in the Barents Sea are moving forward.

Volk noted other prospects, including the pre-Yamalski shelf in the Kara Sea (Rusanovskoye, Leningradskoye and Kharasaveiskoye fields), the Gulf of Ob and Tar Bay; the Sakhalin shelf as well as the Pallas structure in the Black Sea and the Tsentralnaya structure in the Caspian Sea. But to explore offshore deposits, drill and produce them, it is necessary to sort out infrastructure, legal and manufacturing issues such as licensing, R&D and the development of coastal infrastructure and suppy bases.

(Read more in the upcoming November issue of Oil&Gas Eurasia)

Alexei Chesnokov is a staff writer at Oil&Gas Eurasia.

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