mrr@geoinform.ru | alexmore38@mail.ru | www.geoinform.ru

but its many excellent maps and tables are not yet on their website.

Shtokmanovskoye, with about twice the gas reserves of Gröningen in The Netherlands, ie over 100 trillion cubic feet, (plus LPG) is almost too much focussed on, though it will be the test case for collaborative development with Norwegian companies and others, under the overall control of Gazprom.

http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/shtokman/

But there are other giant discoveries, dating back to major exploration in the 1980s when the Soviet Union realized it needed the offshore to replace declining onshore reserves. However, Russian engineers have a much more conservative culture when it comes to reserve lives:

Overall FinnBarents map of existing fields and prospects

...and regard the situation in the United States where lives have been in single figures for decades as feckless optimism. Background on all this might be found in Jeff Roberts' Kemi presentation in 2005 (also: full text of presentation) and the 2003 essay 'Russian Oil Investment: American Salvation lies in the Barents Sea' (incomplete Russian version here) which covers energy in its broader sense; even Don Quixote and windmills.

On the overall ecological implications of Barents Sea oil & gas, Zavaronkin of Bellona:

Bellona talk text: Russian, English

Total wells drilled (mainly wildcats?)			and Density of Seismic, km per square km
East Arctic Seas	0		0.04
Bering Sea	1		0.09
Kara Sea	13		0.09
Baltic Sea	13		0.11
Barents Sea	51		0.31
Okhotsk & Japan Seas	81		0.61	?includes Sakhalin
Azov & Black Sea	15		0.62
Caspian Sea	23		1.0
total wells drilled	197		0.24	Average
Compare Norway total	5000		4
From Fig 2	page 16	Mineral Resources of Russian Shelf			2006

[from Mineral Resources of Russian Shelf: Fig.2 page 16]

shows the astonishing immaturity of the Russian Continental Shelf when compared only to Norway. A total of 197 wells have been drilled in Russian territory, against 5000 in Norway; the average density of seismic shooting in prospective areas is twenty times greater in Norway. Of course, the 1990s were a period in which nothing happened after the USSR collapse, and when low oil prices drove the Seven Sisters to amalgamate. There have been important discoveries since 2001 however.

Out of that 197 exploration well total, including 51 in the Barents Sea and only 13 in the Kara Sea, proving reserves actually even larger than the Barents. 81 go to Sakhalin/Sea of Japan areas, where the potential of the Sea of Okhotsk has been hardly scratched and the Kurils Islands dispute keeps it all Russian to Japanese chagrin. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-11/15/content_391469.htm

Map of the whole island arc, http://artedi.fish.washington.edu/okhotskia/ikip/Results/dbmaps/index.htm leading to a detailed map of southern islands.

But unlike Sakhalin, it is mainly gas, or wet gas - gas with natural gasoline or 'condensate' which comes out as pressures drop towards surface.

So, deep down in the reservoir, Shtokmanovskoye gas is 'dry' and the valuable bonus of bigger molecules only becomes apparent at lower pressures. LPG - liquefied petroleum gases - can be shipped in more modest tankers than LNG - liquefied methane, the dry gas which requires robust tanks and very low temperatures, adding up to expensive shipping. In gas pipelines, pigs are periodically run through to scoop out the condensate in the line that would otherwise clog the flow.

There are several other large discoveries - going from north to south –

• Ludlovskoye (dry gas)
• Ledovoye (wet gas)
• [Shtokmanovskoye - wet gas - 110 TCF; 31m tonnes, ie 250m barrels LPG]
• Severo-Kildinskoye (dry gas)

But, so far, there are no oil discoveries till you reach down to the Pechora Sea, which has shelving ice. It leads naturally to the onshore Timan-Pechora basin, which has substantial but not giant fields currently under development and including foreign licence holders such as ConocoPhillips, Total and ......as originally announced in 2005 as being in the running for Shtokmanovskoye:

http://193.71.199.52/en/energy/39813.html

'Tsentralnoye' or Fedyn Arch and the Disputed Zone

Closer to shore than Shtokmanovskoye, but undrilled, lies the gigantic Central structure. By seismic, it looks as if the productive Mesozoic horizons have been eroded off a Paleozoic structure. However, there should be plenty of flank targets to think about. Much closer to shore like untested Permian reef prospects for oil. Although Shtokmanovskoye will be the first great field to be developed, exploration and production will ebb and flow over different areas as relatively scanty knowledge is improved. Few seem to be worried that nearer shore prospects could upstage Tsentralnoye, largely because they are less optimistic about settlement of the Norwegian: Russian boundary dispute.

Norway-Russia Boundary Dispute – Median Line versus Sector Line

SLIDE: DISPUTED ZONE BETWEEN RUSSIA & NORWAY

[slide from Rune Rautio, Barents Sekretariatet, Kirkenes]

Discussion of issue: White Paper from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Stortings Melding.

Dividing up the Continental Shelf amongst different countries is quite an intellectual achievement. There are various principles - it is easy to draw a median line between the UK and Norway, but if you were to take the Scottish-English boundary, producing it eastward becomes more abritary. The Kuril Islands give an easy answer to who owns rights to the Sea of Okhotsk, hence their importance to Russo-Japanese relations.

http://www.sakhalin.ru/Engl/Region/book/ussr.htm

The Barents Sea dispute goes back to Soviet times, and centres on whether you adopt the Median line or Production from frontiers principle, and how you regard Svalbard, which is Norwegian territory but rather internationalized in terms of access to natural resources; hence uneconomic coal mining on Spitsbergen which has only recently been given up by Russia.

Map of ice limits

The dispute might be resolved by commonsense division down the middle, transecting the main structure. So, west would be 51% Norway, 49% Russian Federation, and East, vice versa. Having such a dispute has affected exploration by Norsk Hydro and (less perhaps) Statoil near the border, but it might have suited Norwegian authorities to suspend development to keep environmental worries on the shelf.

Looking at the whole of the Russian Federation Arctic Shelf, [above] shows that there are just five Arctic shelf nations: Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the US. Finland, briefly, touched the Arctic, as this bit of history shows:

http://www.answers.com/topic/pechenga-1

Pipelines from West Siberia to Murmansk or Kanin

Bellona slides:
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4

Before Yukos was dismembered, there had been a plan to bring 1m barrels/day of West Siberia crude to Murmansk. Background may be found in my Kemi talk [....] but if there is to be any line at all, it looks as if it will reach the sea at Kanin and not cross over to Kola Peninsula directly, or via Karelia. Kanin is a great peninsula sticking into the Pechora Sea and therefore with quite different ice conditions than Murmansk. It also lacks habitation and is not a good place to consider building an export refinery, which a supply to Murmansk would have suggested as set out in a couple of presentations in Shetland, Kemi and summed up as part of 'Europe's New Near Abroad' in an article for the GB Russia Society in 2005.

Shetland NMC meeting: Russian, English

GB Russia essay: English

The essays above were supported by primitive Excel refinery models, into which you can insert today's prices and derive rough margins:

Netbacks West v Russian domestic: English

Rotterdam refinery model: English

Here’s the summer conditions:

Click image for full-size version.

The scope for exploration work (see Mage.ru) and geophysical work is pretty obvious: Geophysical Survey Company – Western Region.

Gennediy Kazanin of MAGE (Murmansk Arctic Geological Expedition) gave a presentation on Frontier oil & gas resources at our April 2005 Conference (all the presentations/programme details were listed at the top of MURMANSK):

MAGE presentation: Russian, English

The overall demands for investment were reviewed by Krasnagorskiy:

Presentation: English and Russian
Text: Russian, English

Akademician Felix Mitrofanov's presentation on Kola Mineral wealth covers the landward side:

Abridged presentation: Russian, English
Full presentation (75MB!): Russian

Steve Henley's overall summary Kola mineral wealth in context: English

Jeff Roberts' conference summary: English

Licensing planned up to 2010

The scope for exploration work (see Mage.ru) and geophysical work is pretty obvious – Geophysical Survey Company – Western Region