Russia is taking a string of measures in its planning of Arctic offshore oil and gas projects. In seven tenders with a total cost frame of 893 million roubles (€18 millon), the country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade now offers leading Russian engineering and design companies contracts related to the development of several grand offshore projects. Among the contracts is on the development of new oil spill clean-up technology, the design for a new nuclear-powered icebreaker, information technology for Northern Sea Route shipping and on the development of equipment of underwater drilling. The biggest contract is on the development concept for a floating oil and gas processing installation and has a cost frame of 245 million roubles (€4,9 million).
Among the winners of the contracts are leading oil and gas projecting companies, among them the Krylov Research Center, the Malachite engineering company, the Saturn Research Center and the Andreyev Acoustics Institute, information posted at the government public procurement website show.
While the Krylov institute got the icebreaker job, the Malachite company will design the new oil and gas processing installation.
The contracts are concluded as Russia’s two leading state-controlled energy companies Rosneft and Gazprom step up their efforts in Arctic waters. Rosneft alone controls a total of 44 offshore licenses with a resource estimate of 42 billion tons of oil equivalents, the lion’s share of it located in the Arctic. As previously reported, the company will together with ExxonMobil this summer drill its first ever well in the Kara Sea, at the perspective Akademichsky structure.
