Arctic hydrocarbon reserves may be just 10% of total resource - Rosnedra chief
MOSCOW. June 17 (Interfax) - Hydrocarbon reserves on the Arctic shelf may amount to no more than 10% of the stated resource, Deputy Natural Resources and Environment Minister Valery Pak, who is also the head of subsurface resource agency Rosnedra, said in an interview with Interfax.
"The shelves, especially the northern ones, are insufficiently studied geologically. Specialists believe that gas fields predominate on the Russian shelf, with the resource ranging between 5 billion and 50 billion tonnes of oil equivalent. But that figure could decine significantly when the resource is converted into reserves," Pak said.
On average in Russia, 10% of the resource gets transferred to reserves. "When we are talking about challenging and unconventional reserves, the percentage is 5%. Our information is based on regional geophysical profiles that have not been verified with exploration drilling. That is a very low level of confidence, since geophysics without drilling does not provide accurate data," he said.
The hydrocarbon sections on the Arctic shelf may be classified as challenging. "The shelf, particularly the northern and eastern shelf, in essence constitutes unconventional hydrocarbon resource owing to the infrastructure factor," he said.
Development of the shelf projects will proceed slowly, he said.
"I believe that the shelf will not be developed rapidly. In my view the shelf won't begin playing a serious role in Russia's production and reserves for at least 25 years, because right now neither domestic nor foreign technologies for developing the Arctic shelf are available," he said.