In September 2014 Rosneft informed that the company together with ExxonMobil had discovered more than 100 million tons of oil at the Universitetskaya-1 field in the Kara Sea. A few weeks later, the Western ban on assisting Russia with deep sea or Arctic offshore oil drilling entered into force, and ExxonMobil left the area with the Norwegian own rig “West Alpha”, as BarentsObserver reported.
Rosneft was due to restart drilling this year, but will not be able to do so without cooperation with ExxonMobil, sources in the company say to Reuters. “There will be no drilling in 2015. There is no platform and it is too late to get one. The project was initially created for Exxon’s platform,” a Rosneft source said.
The sources say to Reuters that the company is looking for another rig in order to start drilling in July-August next year, and that commercial production would now be pushed back to beyond 2020.
