Spatial Organization of Gas Resources Development on the Arctic Shelf of the Russian Federation

Being strategic, the Arctic shelf is a region with an extremely low level of exploration. The undiscovered hydrocarbon resources on the Russian Arctic shelf exceed 90%. The long-term development of strategic programs and projects for the development of gas production on the shelf are constrained by insufficient technical accessibility of industrial development, as well as the difficulty of assessing the actual volume of initial potential oil and gas resources. The reproduction of free gas reserves has been assessed, the level of parity between production and growth of explored reserves has been determined. The state of the gas resources of the Arctic shelf was studied taking into account localization in oil and gas regions, which allowed to make a conclusion about the degree of exploration of the resource base and to identify the basis for the gas potential. The factors restraining the development of offshore projects were identified and analyzed. It was determined that offshore projects should be presented to investors with more attractive operational, technological and economic indicators than alternative onshore projects. The lack of tested methods for the development of hydrocarbons at superdeep depths under severe ice conditions does not allow to fully assessing the economic efficiency of offshore gas projects in the Arctic. It is concluded that within the resource base of Arctic offshore fields, it is necessary to allocate the static (probabilistic) potential of hydrocarbon resources of the Arctic region. The need to transform the Arctic foreign policy is identified.