Barents, Kara Seas Hold Great Gas Potential

Russia’s Barents and Kara seas hold more than 54.3bn and 33.8bn metric tons of oil equivalent in in-place natural gas, according to estimates provided by the St Petersburg Mining University. A metric ton of oil is equivalent to 1,125 m³ of gas but the estimates include all categories of possibility and do not consider the economics of production.

The gas resources of the two Arctic zones dwarf their oil resources, assessed at only 4.26bn toe for the Kara sea and 4.44bn toe for the Barents sea, the head of the university’s department of geology of oil and gas, Oleg Prischepa, said in a presentation at the St Petersburg International Gas Forum. In contrast, the frontier Laptev Sea further east holds only 2.83bn toe of gas and 1.59bn toe of oil.

The Barents and Kara seas have been well-covered with seismic surveys over the years, although so far drilling has been largely confined to areas near the shore, Prischepa said. But many of the largest gas deposits are found in more remote areas more than 600 km from the coast.

“A careful approach is needed for development, moving from remote to more remote [offshore] fields; less challenging to more challenging fields,” Prischepa said, calling for more financing to be allocated to development of Russia’s shelf resources. “Even though we talk about the necessity of developing the shelf, we do not finance it enough,” he said.

Despite the Russian Arctic shelf's sizeable gas resources, development to date has focused on oil. The only offshore Arctic project in production currently is Gazprom Neft's Prirazlomnoye oilfield in the Kara Sea. Rosneft and ExxonMobil also struck oil in the area in 2014, but were forced to halt exploration because of US sanctions. Gazprom is continuing with offshore gas exploration, but is yet to draw up development plans for any of its discoveries.