Costal fields to be developed on Russia Arctic shelf

Hydrocarbon reserves on the Russian Arctic shelf continues to grow. In recent years, gas companies managed increase in reserves by 1.5 trillion cubic meters. According to scientists, not all fields of blue and black gold have been discovered here. Large deposits of hydrocarbons can be opened at a depth of 2-3 kilometers, deputy director for scientific work of the Institute of Oil and Gas Problems of RAS Vasily Bogoyavlensky believes.

This indicates the urgent need for further research in the Arctic. But such studies are complicated by a number of serious problems.

- Drilling fleet of the USSR and Russia is largely lost - or rather, sold for ridiculous money, - said Vasily Bogoyavlensky. - In recent years, rigs, leased abroad, operated in the north of the Arctic and the Far East, including in the Barents and Kara Seas. Such approach doesn’t help to develop the Russian industry, as it was in 1980, when production of drilling rigs and other equipment at domestic plants and shipyards was promptly launched. Now companies prefer to rent them from their foreign partners. In the Barents Sea, there is even drilling platform owned by Romania, which until then had never worked in the Arctic. At the same time, two Russian drilling rigs work in Vietnam.