The Ministry of Energy is ready to consider applications for field development from private companies, Shmatko said according to RIA Novosti. - We already know of such proposals, let us sit down and gather these proposals to find out what concrete projects they are interested in, and what money and technologies they can achieve from them, he said.
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Shmatko added that development of fields on the Shelf requires enormous investments and that any company that wishes to work on the field first needs to convince the Russian authorities about its abilities:
- We have to be certain that the company, investors and Western partners have serious intentions, the Minister said.
According to the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, more than 9.3 trillion RUB will be required for research and development of the shelf in the period to 2040. The latest numbers from the Ministry of Natural Resources show that it would take Rosneft and Gazprom – the two only companies with access to the field – 165 years to develop the shelf, even with their pre-crisis investments, RIA Novosti writes.
The Russian Continental Shelf covers 6.2 million square kilometers. The resources are estimated to amount to some 100 billion tons of oil equivalents, RIA Novosti writes. Most of the resources are located on the Arctic shelf, including in the Barents and Kara Seas.
Read also: Russian bid for Arctic waters
