St. Petersburghosted today the opening of the 11th International Conference for Oil and Gas Resources Development in the Russian Arctic and CIS Continental Shelf (RAO/CIS Offshore 2013). A Gazprom delegation is taking part in the event.

Valery Golubev, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee delivered a presentation at the plenary meeting.

He emphasized that offshore developments were Gazprom's strategic objective. A hydrocarbon production center to be formed in the continental shelf will be one of the largest in Russia. In the Arctic shelf (Barents, Pechora, Kara and Bering Seas, Ob and Taz Bays) and in the Sea of Okhotsk, where the operating conditions are close to those in the Arctic, the Company performed a large scope of studies enabling to lay the foundation for the Russian Arctic shelf development strategy.

“Gazprom is Russia's most prepared Company that has the experience and technical means for independently implementing offshore projects in the Arctic: from geological and geophysical studies to field commissioning,” said Valery Golubev.

Between 1995 and 2012 Gazprom drilled over 30 exploratory and prospecting wells, discovered seven new fields, added 3.23 billion tons of fuel equivalent to the existing reserves. In 2013 the Company will start production from two fields – the Prirazlomnoye oil field in the Pechora Sea and the Kirinskoye gas and condensate field in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Prirazlomnoye development will become the first-ever hydrocarbon production project in the Russian Arctic shelf.

Valery Golubev pointed out that Gazprom owned Russia's largest modern fleet of drilling rigs and specialized vessels for shelf operations.

In particular, with a view to drilling offshore exploratory and prospecting wells, Russian shipbuilders constructed on Gazprom's order four drilling facilities, namely the Polyarnaya Zvezda and Severnoye Siyaniye semi-submersible rigs, the Arkticheskaya jack-up floating rig and the Obsky floating drilling complex.

In addition, the Company operates the Amazon jack-up floating drilling rig and ten specialized vessels in the shelf. Two more ice-class supply vessels – Ivan Sidorenko and Ostap Sheremeta – will be built for the Company between 2014 and 2015.