Rosneft commenced drilling an exploration well in the West Irkinsky license area, thus the launching the Vostok Oil Arctic project, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin told RF President Vladimir Putin yesterday.
Vostok Oil project includes the Vankor cluster (15 fields, the largest of which are Suzunskoe, Tagulskoe, Bochnoe and Vankorskoe), the West Irkinsk block (operated by Rosneft), the Payakh group of fields (operated by Neftegazholding) and the fields of the East Taimyr cluster.
The resource potential of the project exceeds 5 bn tons of light low-sulfur oil, superior to Brent. The potential for oil export to the domestic and global markets is estimated at 25 mn tons in 2024, 50 mn tons in 2027 and 115 mn tons by 2030.
Vladimir Putin earlier set a task for to ensure cargo transportation along the Northern Sea Route in the coming years to make it a fully operable transport artery with year-round navigation.
According to Rosneft, Vostok Oil will ensure a significant share of cargo traffic along the Northern Sea Route. Over 100 mn tons of hydrocarbons per year extracted at the project’s fields will be transported along the Northern Sea Route by ice class tankers, which are already being built at Zvezda Shipyard.
Rosneft CEO told about the Vostok Oil project in February this year. The total nvestment in the project is estimated to make 10 trillion rubles, the first stage will cost about 2 trillion. 15 field towns, two airfields, a port, main pipelines about 800 km long, in-field pipelines about 7 thousand km long, 3.5 thousand km of power grid facilities, 2 thousand MW of power generation are planned to be built in the framework of the project. The number of new jobs that the project will require will make about 100,000.
It is planned to build a port with a capacity of 115 mn tons in Sever Bay on the Taimyr Peninsula, RIA Novosti reported quoting a Rosneft spokesperson.