Speaking at the Sankt Petersburg Economic Forum this week, company Director Nikolai Brunich confirmed that a license application has been submitted to the Russian Federal Agency on Underground Resources (Rosnedra). The company wants to team up with Statoil and Total, and talks have already been initiated, Brunich says, RBC Daily reports.
Fedinsky High is believed to be one of the biggest oil and gas fields in the Barents Sea. Mapping of the area conducted by Soviet experts in the 1980 showed that the structure could be a socalled “elephant”, a hydrocarbon deposit of giant proportions. In Norway, the structure is known as the “Hjalmar Johansen Ridge”.
Map: Oil and gas resources in the Barents Sea. The Fedinsky structure and the formerly disputed Norwegian-Russian zone
It is the delimitation agreement between Norway and Russia which now opens up for new activities in the formerly closed area. The moratorium on oil and gas mapping in the 175,000 square km area expireres on 7 July, exactly one month after the exchange of ratification documents in Oslo. As BarentsObserver has reported, Norway is ready to start seismic studies in the Norwegian part of the area already from day one, and the seismic vessel R.V. Harrier is reportedly soon on its way to the site.
The Fedinsky High is located on the Russian side of the delimiated waters, while other promising structures like the Oktyabrskoye is located on the Norwegian side. However, several of the fields in the area are believed to cross the new state border, and will consequently require development by both countries.
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According to Nikolai Brunich, both Total and Statoil are highly interested in projects in the region. -The negotiation process will decided whether both companies or only one of them will join, he says.
Read also: Trans-border gas production in Barents Sea
The state-owned Zarubezhneft company is today primarily operating in foreign projects, several of them in Vietnam, Algeria and India. The company has however also stakes in Russian projects, among them in the Timan Pechora province. In 2009, the company acquired a 10 percent stake in the Kharyaga project, one of Russia’s three projects operated on a production sharing agreement. Project operator in Kharyaga is Total, with Statoil as main partner.
The Kharyaga constellation is of key value, Zarubezhneft argues. –We are today working with Total and Statoil [in the Kharyaga project], and we are comfortable with them, Brunich says. –They have experiences from shelf operations in various regions and we therefore plan to include them in our work, he adds.
Currently, Russian legislation allows only companies with more than five years years of offshore experiences to operate shelf projects. That has given Gazprom and Rosneft something close to a monopoly on the Russian shelf. However, also Zarubezhneft will soon get the needed shelf access experience. The company recently bought the company Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka, a Murmansk-based enterprise with long experiences in Arctic offshore activities. The formal inclusion of Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka in Zarubezhneft is currently in the final stage.
