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Gazprom postpones Barents Sea drilling

We will start exploring the Arctic waters in 2019, the company says.

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Speaking in a conference this week, high-ranking Gazprom representative Vsevolod Cherepanov confirmed that Barents drilling will be conducted in 2019, while drilling in the Kara Sea will be resumed in 2018, RIA Novosti reports.

Cherepanov said that his company in 2015 drilled a well in the Kara Sea.

The company has a total of 38 offshore licenses, among them a lion´s share in Arctic waters.

”The company shelf development program until year 2030 is the core in our offshore hydrocarbon plans”,  Cherepanov said. ”The years 2015-2025 will be the main phase for geological exploration”, he added, RIA Novosti writes.

Gazprom is in the process of developing several major gas fields in and around the Arctic Yamal Peninsula, and company subsidiary Gazprom Neft operates the Prirazlomnaya field, Russia’s first and only offshore hydrocarbon project in the Arctic. The latter is also in the development phase of the Novy Port project near the coast of the Ob Bay.