Russia's Arctic holds 100 Bln tons of oil, gas .!!!!!!!!!

[SpArK]

Russia's Arctic holds 100 Bln tons of oil, gas






Russia's Arctic territories are estimated to contain up to 100 billion tons of oil and gas and the nation needs to defend its claim to those riches, a Cabinet minister said Tuesday.

Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev's statement comes as Russia is strengthening efforts to defend its claims to parts of the Arctic, which is believed to contain as much as a quarter of the Earth's undiscovered oil and gas. Russia, the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway have all been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the region, which is promising new opportunities to tap its oil and gas resources as the polar ice shrinks.

"Our sector in the Arctic is estimated to contain up to 100 billions tons of resources," Trutnev told a small circle of reporters on Tuesday.

Russia, Canada and Denmark are planning to file claims to the United Nations to prove their respective rights to the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain range. Russia first submitted its claim in 2001 to the U.N., but it was sent back for lack of evidence.

Russia will spend 2 billion rubles ($64 million) on research in the next three years to prove its claims, Trutnev said Tuesday.

The Kremlin's point man for the polar regions said Monday that Russia would speed up collection of scientific data and submit it to the United Nations in 2013, matching a similar claim that Canada plans to file the same year.

Trutnev said the government will not going to rush to search for energy riches in the Lomonosov ridge if it wins the case.

"Lomonosov is about working for the future," he said. "I don't think we will start to develop this territory immediately."

Russia and Norway signed a maritime border treaty for the energy-rich Barents Sea last week, paving the way for more offshore oil and gas production.

The two countries have already begun tapping mineral riches buried beneath the floor of the Barents Sea.

Norway's Statoil brought its Snoehvit natural gas field on line in 2007. Meanwhile, Russia's Gazprom, in conjunction with Statoil and France's Total, is developing the Shtokman gas field.

Russia's section of the Barents Sea is estimated to hold tens of billion tons of oil and gas, and scientists are expecting to discover one to two giant deposits and 5 to 7 major ones, Trutnev said.

Critics have cast doubts over Russia's plans to focus on oil and gas production in East Siberia and the Arctic shelf where weather conditions and lack of local expertise makes oil and gas production unprofitable.

Trutnev argued that developing offshore fields will yield long-term benefits for stagnant sectors of Russia's economy, such as shipbuilding.

An Arctic strategy paper signed in 2008 by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the polar region must become Russia's "top strategic resource base" by 2020.

Trutnev said Tuesday that this goal is feasible, considering the Arctic fields that are already under development - like Shtokman or Prirazlomnoye in the Barents Sea, which are expected to begin producing oil and gas in 2012.

Posted on Tue, Sep. 21, 2010 07:17 AM



Read more: Russia's Arctic holds 100 Bln tons of oil, gas - KansasCity.com

 

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[SpArK]

Russia to Scrutinize Bid by India's ONGC for Strategic Arctic Oil Fields



By Ilya Arkhipov and Anna Shiryaevskaya - Sep 21, 2010 6:11 PM G



Russia’s government will examine whether India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp., known as ONGC, has the right to bid for the Trebs and Titov fields under the country’s strategic resources laws.

“They still have time to get approval from the governmental committee,” Russia’s Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev told reporters today in Moscow. Under Russian law, the government must approve foreign investment in strategic assets, including large oil and gas deposits.

Five of Russia’s largest oil companies, including OAO Lukoil and TNK-BP, the venture half-owned by BP Plc, plan to bid for the rights to develop Trebs and Titov, the country’s largest undistributed fields. ONGC paid the participation fee via its Russian unit, Interfax said yesterday, citing an unidentified official with the Federal Subsoil Agency.

The tender rules didn’t limit foreign companies’ right to apply, said Yelena Koverga, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Ministry.

India, planning a sovereign wealth fund to help companies compete with China for overseas energy assets, has ordered state-run ONGC and Oil India Ltd. to speed up purchases and get “at least one big asset,” Oil Secretary S. Sundareshan, the senior-most bureaucrat in the petroleum ministry, said in March. ONGC bought Imperial Energy Plc, which has oil fields in Siberia, for about 1.4 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) last year.

ONGC Partner

“We believe ONGC is likely to invite a Russian partner for the development of the project should it win the tender,” Luis Saenz, a London-based director of international sales at Otkritie Securities Ltd., wrote in an e-mailed note.

OAO Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, may team up with the winner to develop Trebs and Titov, RIA Novosti said, citing Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Eduard Khudainatov. Rosneft dropped plans to bid for the fields to focus on a “good set of highly promising” projects, Khudainatov said in a statement yesterday.

India sought oil and gas projects with Rosneft during a visit to New Delhi by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in March. Rosneft and ONGC have been partners with Exxon Mobil Corp. on the Sakhalin-1 project in Russia’s Far East since 2003 and signed an agreement in 2007 to jointly bid for exploration and refining projects.

ONGC signed an agreement in December with Russian billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s AFK Sistema to study and explore opportunities in Russia and third countries. Sistema controls OAO Bashneft, which said last week it has the financial resources to bid alone for Trebs and Titov.

The bidders must now submit proposals and confirm payment of a deposit by Oct. 28. The starting price was set at 18.2 billion rubles ($587 million). The results of the tender will be announced on Dec. 2.




Russia to Scrutinize Bid by India's ONGC for Strategic Arctic Oil Fields - Bloomberg

 

[muse]

Excellent stuff Benny -- readers should think twice about the so called "future" in alternative energy or non-fossil fuel energy -- if it was, at present or in the near future, a technology that offered hope of a paradigm shift and profits, why are these nations engaged in the race to secure parts of the world as if these belonged to them because they mounted expeditions or were interested in them - who died and said UN can give away chunks of the earth European countries, what's this? the pope dividing the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese and now UN as modern day pope dividing the world?

 

[arihant]

We should not allow anything such type of actions. We should preserve environment in all ways. Artic is already melting and I guess in summer there is no more ice there. Only Antartica is left with ice that with ozone hole in the sky.

I hope we could stop doing all this thing just to increase our economy. I guess, we should stop dependence on non renewable sources. Ok, if we cannot atleast we can try to increase our renewable sources percentage in our sector.

To me if India tries to built a mega (80 Lakh unit) solar plant in Rajasthan's Thar desert in various stages, we can sell same to at least our neighbors we would not help in preserving the environment but also use the land rightly (desert)

 

[SpArK]

We should not allow anything such type of actions. We should preserve environment in all ways. Artic is already melting and I guess in summer there is no more ice there. Only Antartica is left with ice that with ozone hole in the sky.

I hope we could stop doing all this thing just to increase our economy. I guess, we should stop dependence on non renewable sources. Ok, if we cannot atleast we can try to increase our renewable sources percentage in our sector.

To me if India tries to built a mega (80 Lakh unit) solar plant in Rajasthan's Thar desert in various stages, we can sell same to at least our neighbors we would not help in preserving the environment but also use the land rightly (desert)

Projects are already started to take off. So lets hope for the best

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