Rosneft Plans to Explore the North Sakhalin Shelf Subsoil Area
Rosneft plans to conduct comprehensive offshore surveys of the North Sakhalin subsoil block located on the continental shelf of the Sea of Okhotsk in 2023-2027, follows from the materials prepared for the assessment of the project’s impact on the environment.
“NK Rosneft is the owner of a license … for the use of the Severo-Sakhalinskiy subsoil block, located on the continental shelf of the Sea of Okhotsk. In the navigation periods of 2023-2027, comprehensive marine research is planned at the licensed block,” the documents say.
As part of the marine research program, it is planned to conduct “a comprehensive study of engineering and geological conditions, including bottom relief, geological structure, geomorphological, hydrogeological and geocryological conditions; composition, condition and properties of bottom sediments, the presence of hazardous geological processes and phenomena.”
For these purposes, research vessels will be involved, such as Akademik Nemchinov or Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Professor Multanovsky, Otto Schmidt, the materials say.
The North Sakhalin subsoil block is located on the continental shelf of the Sea of Okhotsk off the northern part of Sakhalin Island. In territorial and administrative terms, it is located in the Sakhalin Bay and is adjacent to the Okha district of the Sakhalin region.
Rosneft received this site without an auction from the Russian government in April 2021. Prospective gas resources (D1) on it are 396 billion cubic meters, predicted (D2) – 33.2 billion, localized (Dl) – 68.75 billion cubic meters. The recoverable oil resources of the site are 38 million tons in category D1, 3.2 million tons in category D2, condensate – 19.3 million tons in D1 and 1.6 million tons in D2.