Billions are invested in the Zvezda yard outside Vladivostok to make it capable of meeting Russia’s growing demand for ice-protected ships and platforms.
The Russian company this summer assembled 3D seismic data from a 2800 square kilometer area in the Barents Sea. The company believes the area could hold 1.4 billion tons of oil and 1.9 trillion cubic meters of gas.
After a somewhat disappointing test-drilling season for oil companies in the north, Lundin Petroleum today announces a big finding of both oil and gas.
Russia will use about one fourth of its National Welfare Fund resources for infrastructure projects including the controversial Rosatom-funded Fennovoima nuclear reactor in Pyhäjoki, Finland.
North Sea crude trading prices are now the lowest since June 2012. On Monday morning the price had reached USD 92 per barrel, according to Bloomberg. Oil prices remaining below USD 100 per barrel will mean several development projects no longer being profitable and cuts could be bigger.
The Russian Government allocates another 24 billion rubles to construction of Port of Sabetta on the Yamal Peninsula, thus securing total financing of the near 100 billion ruble project.
Exxon and Rosneft have found oil at the first well drilled, but the unanswered question is how to exploit it as sanctions halt Arctic offshore cooperation.
Production proceeds as planned, but parts of equipment and services will be replaced by Russian suppliers, a top leader of operator company Gazprom Neft says about Russia’s first offshore oil project.
The new round of EU and US sanctions aims at Russian offshore Arctic oil and gas projects, and could put grand partnerships between Rosneft, ExxonMobil, ENI and Statoil in jeopardy.
