Rosneft investment in Arctic shelf development to grow to RUB 250 bln in 2017–2021

Rosneft will increase investment in the development of the Arctic shelf by 150% over the next five years, the company said in a press release.

“Over the last five years, Rosneft’s invested approximately RUB 100 billion in the development of the Arctic shelf. The company has no plans to reduce its pace of work and will increase investment by 150% to RUB 250 billion over the period from 2017 to 2021”, the press release says.

The company intends to intensify exploratory drilling work on the Arctic shelf and drill four exploratory wells on the shelf of the Laptev Sea and eight wells in the Kara and Barents Seas by 2021, TASS news agency reports.

At present, Rosneft owns 28 license blocks on the Arctic shelf with total reserves of 34 billion tonnes of oil equivalent. Rosneft owns more than 78% of the total license block area in the Arctic.

Experts say the Arctic shelf will account for 20-30% of all Russian oil production by 2050, TASS reports.