Rosneft and Statoil strike out in Sea of Okhotsk

Russia’s Rosneft and Norway’s Statoil have failed to find commercially viable oil reserves in the Sea of Okhotsk after drilling two wells, Russian Natural Resources Minister Sergey Donskoy told Interfax last week.

In mid-2016, the joint venture partners spud two exploration wells – Magadan-1 and Lisyansky – on the Magadan shelf off the coast of Russia’s Far East. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said at the time that the pair hoped to find a deposit containing 100 million tonnes (730 million barrels) of oil. However, Russian business daily Vedomosti quoted sources in October last year as saying that drilling operations had disappointed.

Statoil has not commented on the latest statements from Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry. Meanwhile, a representative of Rosneft told Vedomosti last week that company was fully complying with its licence obligations in the region and was in the process of collecting data. 

Rosneft and Statoil struck an agreement on joint exploration of the Russian and Norwegian continental shelves in 2012. Under this accord, they set up two joint ventures – Magadanmorneftegaz and Lisyanskneftegaz – to explore for hydrocarbons at the offshore Lisyansky and Magadan-1 blocks in the Sea of Okhotsk. Drilling at the sites was carried out by the Nanhai-9 semi-submersible rig, supplied by China Oilfield Services Ltd (COSL).

“We are still working on analysing the results from the wells and the final conclusion has not yet been drawn,” a representative of Statoil told NewsBase Intelligence (NBI), when asked whether the company had further drilling plans in the area. The spokesman said there was no set schedule for this analysis work to be wrapped up.

The water depth at the two blocks does not exceed 150 metres, and therefore Statoil’s activities are not subject to international sanctions that restrict Western firms from taking part in Russian offshore oil and gas projects.

Russia produced some 16 million tonnes (321,000 bpd) of oil in the Sea of Okhotsk in 2015. Rosneft alone controls some 20 blocks in the region. It has teamed up with Japan’s Inpex to hunt for hydrocarbons at the offshore Magadan-2 and Magadan-3 blocks, estimated to house 1.577 billion tonnes (11.6 billion barrels) in recoverable oil reserves.