Page 17 - FSUOGM Week 50 2020

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM

Rosneft reports two more Kara

Sea discoveries

RUSSIA RUSSIA’S Rosneft has reported two more dis- The second well at the Vostochno-Prino-
coveries in the Kara Sea after resuming drill- vozemelsky-2 block identified a field contain-
The state oil producer ing in the frontier Arctic region earlier this ing 514 bcm of gas and 53mn tonnes (389mn
revealed its return to year. barrels) of condensate. This discovery has been
the frontier region in Rosneft grabbed headlines in 2014 when it named after Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky,
August after six years of made the Pobeda oil discovery in the Kara Sea another prominent Red Army commander in
inactivity. with its US partner ExxonMobil. Today Pobeda WW2.
is estimated to hold 130mn tonnes (953mn bar- Taken together with Pobeda’s reserves, this
rels) of oil and some 422bn cubic metres (bcm) means Rosneft is sitting on a resource of over 1.7
of natural gas. The US government imposed trillion cubic metres of gas and 200mn tonnes
sanctions against Russia’s oil industry within (1.47bn barrels) of oil and condensate, the com-
weeks of the find, however, forcing Exxon to pany said. This makes it possible for Rosneft to
withdraw. This and the collapse in oil prices in establish a cluster for oil and gas production, it
late 2014 led Rosneft to put all offshore Arctic said.
drilling on hold. In total, Rosneft has discovered over 30
The state oil producer finally revealed its promising structures at its three Vostochno-Pri-
return to the Kara Sea this August, announcing novozemelsky licences, it said. In addition, it
it had begun drilling two wells near the Novaya recently drilled eight stratigraphic wells in the
Zemlya archipelago. north of the Kara Sea, in order to improve its
In a statement on December 9, Rosneft said knowledge of the area’s geological structure and
one of the wells, drilled to a depth of 1,621 metres oil and gas potential.
at the Vikulovskaya structure at the Vostoch- Rosneft’s main focus right now is the Vostok
no-Prinovozemelsky-1 licence area, had found Oil megaproject, consisting of several onshore
an 800-bcm gas deposit. It has been named Mar- oil and gas fields within the Arctic circle. It plans
shal Georgy Zhukov, after the military leader to sell some of its older assets in southern Russia
that led the Soviet Union to victory against Nazi to bankroll the venture, and is in line to receive
Germany in the Second World War. extra tax breaks to support development. ™

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