Governor Mikhail Mashkovtsev said possible environmental consequences of oil production had to be studied after evaluating available resources. "Launching commercial development can take years, dozens of years," he said.
Mashkovtsev said prospecting efforts did not require an environmental impact audit. Only one test angle well would have to be bored.
"Some zealous politicians are making a storm in a teacup and want to stop prospecting. They should not forget that the US, for example, has all its reserves on the oceanic shelf prospected. We should also know our reserves," said the governor.
The Western Kamchatka shelf's forecast resources were estimated at 900 million metric tons of oil equivalent.
Environmentalists warned the possible development of oil fields on the shelf threatened the ecosystem of the Sea of Okhotsk.
Robert Moiseyev, director of the Kamchatka-based Environment and Nature Use Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences' branch in the Far East, said there were only five places in the world similar to the Sea of Okhotsk in terms of the reproduction capacity of bioresources, and it was the only such place in Russia. Affecting the sea's ecosystem would inevitably deal a serious economic blow on the Far Eastern regions.
Kamchatka is preparing for a referendum designed to prevent oil prospecting and production on the shelf.
Over 17,000 local residents put their signatures under an appeal to prevent the development of hydrocarbon resources on the Western Kamchatka's shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk, the spawning site of Kamchatka crabs and valuable fish species.
In March, the local legislature requested the Prosecutor General's Office to look into the legitimacy of prospecting on the peninsula.
For example, MPs requested to check the compliance of Rosneft, a state-owned oil company that had a license to develop an oil-rich block on the shelf, with the laws On the Continental Shelf, On Subsurface Resources, and On Environmental Impact Audits.
The legislature also insisted the prospecting plans should have been agreed on with relevant federal bodies, local government bodies, and public organizations.
The MPs demanded a positive conclusion on the matter from a state environmental watchdog.
Russia's continental shelf is the largest in the world, its area exceeding 6.2 million sq. km. Four million sq. km of them are rich in oil and natural gas, according to Russia's Natural Resources Ministry.
Minister Yury Trutnev said at a cabinet meeting recently serious prospecting had not been done on the continental shelf since 1993.
