Gazprom decides to postpone exploration in the Barents Sea till 2025

Gazprom has requested the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources to defer geological exploration in the Barents Sea until 2025 because of its economic inexpediency. It threatens disruption of the plans for the extraction on the shelf of 10% of gas in the country by 2035, the RBC daily writes.

Gazprom considers it inexpedient to conduct the exploration in the Barents Sea in the current economic situation, the corporate magazine of the gas monopoly informs. The company asked the Ministry of Environment to amend the terms of the license agreements to postpone the drilling and seismic survey on the shelf for the period after 2025, the article says.

"By the end of 2025, Gazprom must perform 20 thousand linear km of 2D seismic survey and 9 thousand square km of 3D one on the shelf of the Barents Sea, as well as to drill 12 exploration wells. Gazprom’s specialists believe that it’s not only virtually impossible to master such volumes, but also impractical. The company's mission is to create priorities and the queue of the offshore program implementation, based on the timing of the fields launch and the economic efficiency. It is obvious that the drilling at the areas in the Barents Sea, taking into account the current market conditions, is a quite distant prospect," – it is said in the article.