In ear­ly May, the Nor­we­gi­an Sta­toil and the Rus­si­an Ros­neft have signed a con­tract in Moscow in the pre­sence of prime minis­ter (now pre­si­dent) Putin to joint­ly explo­re and exploit the Per­seyevs­ky oil field in the Rus­si­an sec­tor of the nor­t­hern Barents Sea. The Per­seyevs­ky field ist east of Spits­ber­gen, west­s­ou­thwest of Franz Josef Land. The eco­no­mic poten­ti­al is belie­ved to be near 35-40 bil­li­on US-$. The sea is 150-250 met­res deep and regu­lar­ly cover­ed with sea­so­nal drift ice.

Seis­mic explo­ra­ti­ons are sup­po­sed to cla­ri­fy the geo­lo­gi­cal struc­tures over the next years. The first explo­ra­ti­ve dril­ling is plan­ned for 2020.

The con­tract also includes Nor­we­gi­an-Rus­si­an coope­ra­ti­on for seve­ral oil- and gas fields in Russia’s far east. In return, Ros­neft will get enga­ged in Nor­we­gi­an acti­vi­ties in the North Sea and the Nor­we­gi­an sec­tor of the Barents Sea.

Source: Barents­ob­ser­ver