03-01-00 Beginning form the year 2010, LUKoil petroleum company plans to extract around 50 mm tpy of oil in the Timan-Pechora province and the Komi Republic, the company's president Vagit Alekperov announced in Murmansk. "Our attention to the North is motivated by the fact that over the past 30 years Russia was not developing new oil areas. It is necessary to overcome a lag in this as petroleum reserves in traditional areas of petroleum extraction are limited," he said. Alekperov also said LUKoil plans to begin developing oil deposits on the Yamal peninsula.
The company is building its own tanker fleet for oil transportation in Arctic traditions. For this purpose, LUKoil has already purchased the controlling block of shares of the Murmansk shipping line.
The aim of Alekperov's visit to Murmansk is to discuss the development of new transport communications in the Russian Arctic seas with the leadership of the shipping line and the Murmansk region, which in the years ahead is to become the most important transhipment area for the export of Arctic oil to Western Europe and America.