MOSCOW, October 4 (RIA Novosti) – The state-owned company that runs the offshore Arctic drilling platform targeted in a recent Greenpeace protest said Friday that the rig will begin pumping crude oil before the end of the year.
“Oil production may be started at the end of the year, in December,” said Alexander Dyukov, the head of Gazprom Neft, the Prime News Agency reported.
Greenpeace activists from the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker attempted to scale the Prirazlomnaya platform last month in a protest that has resulted in piracy charges and imprisonment for all 30 activists involved.
The Prirazlomnaya platform, located about 60 kilometers from Russia’s northern coast, is the flagship project of the country’s nascent exploitation of offshore hydrocarbon reserves, which Greenpeace warns could result in serious damage to fragile Arctic ecosystems.
About 140,000 tons of oil will be produced from Prirazlomnaya in 2013, and about 500,000 to 600,000 tons will in 2014, according to plans announced by Gazprom Neft Shelf, the Gazprom Neft subsidiary that operates the Prirazlomnaya platform.
“Today we are working on the testing and start-up of systems and equipment, and we are drilling the first producing wells,” the head of Gazprom Neft Shelf, Gennady Lyubin, said Thursday, Prime reported.
Discovered in 1989, the Prirazlomnaya field lies off Russia’s northern shores at a depth of about 20 meters and its total reserves are believed to amount to 72 million tons of oil, according to the Gazprom Neft Shelf website.
