27-08-08 A boom-time of offshore activity in the Russian arctic is driving an enormous oil industry order-boom, but the mix of technology ordered will be more than many expect, ONS 2008 conference-goers heard.
Russian energy giant Gazprom expects marine oil and gas fields to account for 63 % of production by 2030, beginning with the giant 3.8-tcm Barents Sea gas field Shtokman, which is expected to begin 24 years of plateau production by 2014. The field will be powered thereafter by at least five area satellite fields.

By 2030, rubles 2 tn ($ 81.31 bn) will have paid for 203 sub-sea systems; 49 platforms; 140 offshore service vessels; 90 ice-class shuttle tankers and up to 30 ice-breaking carriers of liquefied natural gas. The numbers come from Andre Fomichev, director general of Severnaya Shipyard.
"Our offshore fleet is in need of upgrading," Fomichev said, adding that only 5 % of the offshore service ships from the Barents Sea to the Yamal Peninsula are Russian built.

The offshore boom willincreasingly feature a mix of Russian technology. Shtokman, too, will have shore-based control of offshore production, according to Roman Samsonov, director-general of Gazprom business Vniigaz.
By comparison, Samsonov said, Russia's hugely prolific inner Siberian fields are seen producing just 26 % of the country's volumes in 20 years. In the mix is Russian technology, and Samsonov cited a Russian patent award for a subsea-platform-to-shore solution for a Yara Sea field. The platform is round but fixed to the near-shore seabed.

At Kammenomskoye, an unheralded field, eight subsea production systems will be needed for 50 bn cm per year by 2015.
An official approval from officials has allowed Gazprom Vniigaz to proceed despite criticism over the safety of a planned 700-km pipeline across shifting quality in Arctic permafrost.