Shtokman and Russia's Arctic Petroleum Frontier

Author(s): Indra Øverland
Editor(s): Jeronim Perovic, Robert Orttung, Matthias Neumann, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder
Series: Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)
Issue: 33
Pages: 8-12
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen
Publication Year: 2008

The need to develop new sources of natural gas to supply domestic and foreign customers is pushing Gazprom into the Arctic. Two key Arctic projects could, at least in theory, become the company's and the country's new mainstays: Shtokman and Yamal. The realistic time-scales, cost frames and sources of financing for these two projects remain highly unclear. It is also unclear whether the projects will be developed in parallel or sequentially. So far, however, there has been far more organizational stir surrounding the Shtokman field, which is therefore the main topic of this article. The Shtokman field is located close to the Norwegian border in the Barents Sea, and the Norwegian oil major StatoilHydro has been selected as one of the two main foreign partners for the project. The development of the project therefore has implications for Russian-Norwegian relations in the north, which are also discussed in this paper.

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