Friday, 02 April 2010 12:16
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Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources is filing a new request with the United Nations which substantiates Russia's claims on the Okhotsk shelf and seeks to expand its presence on the continental shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk. A statement to this effect was made by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko.
The oil reserves in the Sea of Okhotsk are estimated at billions of tons and its gas reserves are thought to amount to trillions of cubic meters. Particularly promising are projects to develop the Sakhalin and Kamchatka fields, and the oil and gas reserves in the severe Arctic latitudes have yet to be assessed.
As global warming and ice melting open up new opportunities for oil exploration in the Arctic, the Arctic countries strive to expand their presence in the region. President Barack Obama said on March 31st that the United States is stepping up effort to develop oil and gas fields off the northern coast of Alaska. According to the Director of the Energy Development Foundation, Sergei Pikin, the US wants to minimize the imports of raw materials.
Most of the US oil and gas deposits are untouchable strategic reserves, Sergei Pikin says. For this reason, most American companies have been prospecting for oil and gas in the Persian Gulf countries and in Latin America. In the conditions of the economic crisis, an increase in oil and gas prices would draw a heavy burden on the US economy. Developing the domestic energy sector is thus a top priority in order to block the growing prices before they approach the price of $100 or more per barrel.
Until recently two Russian companies – Gasprom and Rosneft – had a monopoly on continental shelf exploration. Now, the Natural Resources Ministry suggests inviting private, including foreign, companies which could get up to 50% stake in the projects.
"The participation of foreign companies would help settle many problems, said Gennady Shmal, President of the Union of Oil and Gas Industrialists. "As it became clear in the course of a meeting of Russian and Norwegian oil workers in Troms, Norway is far ahead of us in the oil exploration technologies. This is not because we are that backward but because we had sufficient oil reserves on the ground and there was no need to develop those at sea."
Experts estimate Russia's shelf reserves at 100 billion tons of standard fuel. This means Russia should waste no time in laying the groundwork for exploration effort today.