Russia to study Arctic oil, gas prospects in shelf border extension

MOSCOW. Dec 31 (Interfax) – Russia is looking to study oil and gas prospects as it prepares to extend its Arctic shelf borders.

Subsurface resources agency Rosnedra has already announced – on the state procurement portal – a tender for the selection of an outfit to evaluate the prospects of oil and gas fields on Russia’s continental shelf beyond the 200-mile zone.

The tender is being held in the context of preparations for an application to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). The winner of the tender will have to analyze as yet un-prospected potential hydrocarbon resources on the basis of seismic studies within the area.

This work is to take place from the first quarter of next year through the first quarter of 2015. The contract price tag is 944 million rubles.

Earlier, the Natural Resources and Ecology Ministry said that as much as five billion tonnes of standard fuel could be found in the search area. As per international law, the North Pole and Arctic Sea belong to no one country.

However, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States have rights to an exclusive economic zone extending 370 kilometers from their borders.

After the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, convention participants have a ten-year period in which they can announce their aim to expand the bounds of their continental shelf beyond 200 maritime miles of the demarcation line.

Russia plans to ask the UN for a border extension to include the Lomonosov range, the Podvodnikov trough, and the Mendeleyev elevation in 2014-2015. If approved, the application would expand Russian territorial waters by 1.2 million square kilometers. Canada has already sent the UN commission its own preliminary application for the extension of its continental shelf border to include North Pole territory.