Gazprom Neft was licensed the rights for geological studies and prospecting for production of oil in the Barents Sea by the Russian Government on Monday.
The area in question is the so-called Northwestern block covering an area of 8,861 square kilometres in the Russia sector of the Barents Sea, reports Itar-Tass.
Gazprom Neft is today the only company with offshore oil production in the European part of the Russian Arctic. Its Prirazlomnoye rig started production last fall with the first export earlier this year. The rig, located in the Pechora Sea, attracted world-attention last September as the Russian coast guard arrested all crew members on board the Greenpeace vessel “Arctic Sunrise” protesting oil-drilling in the fragile environment.
The new Barents Sea license was granted just after the oil and gas workers day, celebrated on Sunday. In his speech to the industry workers, President Vladimir Putin mentioned the importance of Arctic shelf development.
Listing the important tasks, Putin said:
“Among them are the diversification of export flows, the development of promising new fields, the creation of modern clusters for processing and transportation of raw materials, the large-scale programs of the Arctic shelf development, the introduction of high-tech equipment and high environmental standards.”
High-tech equipment for offshore oil-drilling can be difficult as the EU and USA in its second round of sanctions announced in August put a ban on such export to Russia.
Head of Russia’s trade mission to Norway, Tamara Chernysheva, says to the Norwegian weekly Teknisk Ukeblad that Gazprom and Rosneft need Norwegian technology. “We need assistance from Norway to develop as much as is needed,” she says and continues:
“There is a huge demand for machinery and equipment for drilling, shipbuilding and coastal infrastructure. Oil and gas exploration in the Arctic has long been one of the most important elements of Russian policy in the north,” says Chernysheva.
The new package of sanctions adopted by the European Council on Monday reportedly includes a ban on raising capital for Gazprom Neft within the 28 EU nations. Norway is also likely to follow EU’s sanctions list.
The full lists will be made public in the next few days, but President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, writes in a statement “the sanctions aim at promoting a change of course in Russia’s actions destabilising eastern Ukraine.” The council condemns the increasing inflow of fighters and weapons from Russia into Eastern Ukraine and the aggression by Russian armed forces on Ukrainian soil.
Reporting from the oil exhibition ONS in Stavanger in late August, BarentsObserver made headline out of Gazprom’s statement announcing an ambitious Arctic offshore exploration plan with the need of 80 new rigs, platforms, tankers, supply vessels and crew boats.
To do so, Gazprom needs to invest heavily, now made more difficult by the sanctions squeeze.
