Rosneft wants to know more about Norwegian shelf

State-controlled company Rosneft in late December announced a tender on the creation of a so-called integrated geological model for the area. 

That was won by RN Exploration, a subsidiary of Rosneft, information from the company’s procurement committee shows. 

The tender announcement reads that the areas in question include «the Norwegian-Russian sectors of the Barents Sea». That is likely to overlap with the areas covered by the Treaty on maritime delimitation and cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean, a deal struck by the two countries in 2010.

RN Exploration is to conduct the operation in the period between 16th January 2016 and 28th December 2018. The agreement is worth 144 million rubles (€2.26 million). RN Exploration has from before been hired for a series of Rosneft assignments all over the world, including on the shelf.

The tender comes as Russia and Norway are about to enter into agreement over the seismic mapping of of their neighbouring maritime border areas. A new agreement will allow seismic vessels to cross the border with their streamers, thus getting the full picture of the underwater geology of the borderland. The countries also intend to start sharing their seismic data from the area.

Norway and Russia are also in the process of restarting the work of a joint working group on so-called unitization, the joint development of cross-border fields.

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«Russia is interested in developing projects on energy and extraction on the shelf, consequently our country is very interested in joint activity with Norway in the Barents Sea», Russian Minister of Natural Resources Sergey Donskoy said during a recent visit to Oslo.

Despite the cold political climate between Oslo and Moscow, the two countries have continued their dialogue on energy developments in the Barents Sea. Also contacts between the countries’ leading oil companies Rosneft and Statoil have been followed up. The two companies both have licenses on each sites of the maritime border.

The hydrocarbon potential of the area is significant and experts believe it could hold «an elephant».

Rosneft today holds a total of several licenses in the Barents Sea. In addition, the company holds a stake in PL 713, a license on the Norwegian side of the border.