No. 4, 2009

Effective seismological surveying of the Russian Arctic is the basis for development of the shelf of the Arctic Ocean

Russia's continental shelf within the 200-mile zone is over 4.2 million km² in area, with potential hydrocarbon resources of more than 140 billion tons of conditional fuel.  At the same time, a large part of them are concentrated in the Arctic zone.  Considering the gradual exhaustion of the oil and gas reserves on land, the oil and gas companies of Russia are now already beginning to develop the huge resources of the northern shelf, no matter how difficult they might be to access.

A sharp turning point

The first large-scale work conducted in the USSR to develop the oil and gas resources on the continental shelf was launched in 1978 by the Ministry for the Gas Industry, which set up search and survey drilling, seismological surveying and engineering and geological research enterprises in Murmansk.  They helped develop about 340 thousand m² of seismic profiles, disclose about 100 promising structures and perform survey drilling on 19 structures.  As a result, about 10 oil and gas fields with established reserves of more than 4 trillion m³ of gas and 100 million tons of oil were discovered in the Barents, Pechora and Kara Seas.  The biggest of them are the Shtokmanovskoye gas condensate field in the Barents Sea, the Rusanovskoye and Leningradskoye gas condensate fields in the Kara Sea, and the Prirazlomnoye oil field in the Pechora Sea.

In the late 1980s, during the period of crises and subsequent collapse of the USSR in 1991, the work in the geological industry slowed down, being left without state support and subsidies, and the programme for studying the Arctic and Far Eastern seas was sharply curtailed. 

At the same time, in the USA and a number of West European countries, there was a sharp jump in the sphere of seismic research for the needs of the offshore oil and gas industry.  New companies appeared, innovative technical means and technologies were created, primarily for obtaining reliable and good quality data on productive seams at varying depths. 

During this period, in their economic forecasts and estimates of the resource potential of Russia's Arctic shelf, specialists of the renowned All Russia Petroleum Research Exploration Institute emphasized that the main reasons for the slow development of the country's offshore oil and gas industry were associated with the fact that the key technical and geological-economic problems had not yet been resolved, this resulting in inaccurate data, underestimation of the potential of Russia's offshore hydrocarbon resources and its reduced investment appeal.

A new stage

Under the difficult conditions at the time of emerging market transformations in Russia, by 1994 work began to be resumed on developing the resources of the continental shelf.  That year, Gazprom created a specialised company, Gazflot, for carrying out geological survey work and developing offshore fields, which also continued the search for new fields in the Arctic seas.  Beginning from 1995, this company has been specialising in building wells in the Arctic seas - on the Pechora shelf of the Barents Sea, the Ob and Tazov bays of the Kara Sea, and a number of other regions.

Since June 1, 1998, Gazflot has been certified by the Russian marine register as a company whose safety management system fully complies with the requirements of the International Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution Prevention.

Since then, Gazflot has performed a considerable volume of geological survey work on the Arctic shelf, the result being discovery of new fields and an increase in the reserves of oil and natural gas.  Three oil fields have been discovered in the Pechora Sea - the Varandey-Sea, Medynskoye-Sea and Dolginskoye, with aggregate С1+С2 reserves of about 350 million tons of oil.  Four gas fields have been discovered in the Cenomanian strata of the Ob and Tazov bays, at a depth of 1000-1200 meters.  Two of these, the Kamennomysskoye-Sea and North Kamennomysskoye, are big fields, and two are smaller ones - the Obskoye and the Chugoryakhinskoye, the four having aggregate reserves of about 800 billion m³ of gas. 

Priority task

In 2003, Gazprom specialists developed a Concept for Gazprom Operations on the Shelf of the Russian Federation, which was approved by the Management Board of this joint-stock company. The priority sites of search and survey work and development up to 2030 are the fields and new structures in the Ob and Tazov Bays, as well as of the Priyamalskiy shelf and the Pechora Sea.

Seismological surveying is now one of the main methods for studying the shelf in sea basins.  It is widely used in the oil and gas industry for assessing how promising a given region is in terms of hydrocarbon raw materials.  A seismic survey makes it possible to identify uneven lithological formation, structure and tectonic specifics, to determine the isotropism of the environment, fracturing and rock formation, and, in the event of a study of hydrocarbon fields - to disclose collectors, indicator horizons and contacts.  The given method is characterized by mobility, high-speed work and a relatively low cost compared to opening up the subsoil by means of search and survey drilling.  At the same time, insufficient seismological surveying engenders an improper understanding of the geology of oil and gas fields, incorrect reserve assessment, higher costs and lower returns on resource development.

Offshore seismological surveying may play a significant role in delimiting frontiers and in settling inter-state political and legal problems relating to shelf subsoil use.  The majority of countries with their own economic offshore zones are now actively gathering information to present to the UN special commission.  This might serve as the basis for expanding their frontiers on to the continental shelf.  There are certain criteria for proving such claims, which might, by the way, be substantial.  Already today, there are examples of the UN issuing a positive decision on such applications.  For instance, Norway was the first of the Arctic countries to add an area of 235 thousand km² in the north. 

The Russian Federation is also counting on increasing its territory by over 1.5 million km².  The legal status of the continental shelf and its reserves was established in 2008 in new versions of the Laws on the Subsoil and on the Continental Shelf. 

One of the key tasks directly associated with development of Russian offshore seismic surveying is to restore the country's specialized scientific research Arctic fleet, technical and technological lines for production of seismological and geological-geophysical equipment.  Several industries are being simultaneously involved in this, constituting the support and driver of development of any state's economy - machine-building, ship-building, the military industrial complex, scientific research institutes, design bureaux, enterprises producing means and technology for studying the Earth's crust and its resources.  Any major ship-building enterprise belonging to the United Ship-building Company, the formation of which was completed by the Government of Russia in April 2009, is capable of creating the specialized vessels or even series of them. This also requires the support of the major Russian oil and gas companies. 

In general, such activities will undoubtedly encourage not only development of hydrocarbon fields in the Arctic, but also development of the infrastructure of the territories of the Far North adjacent to the shelf zone and of the Northern Sea Route as one of the main trade routes of the future.