ST PETERSBURG, June 18. /TASS/. Russia’s oil major Rosneft has unveiled plans for creating an industrial park in the Murmansk region to provide support for offshore oil exploration and development in the Arctic. The company’s top management and the region’s authorities have signed a corresponding document on cooperation at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday.
As the regional government’s press office has told TASS, cooperation provides for deploying a coastal base to provide support for offshore Arctic projects and to build up research potential and human resources for these projects.
"One of the industrial park’s main tasks will be the transfer of equipment and technologies for offshore oil and gas development in the Arctic, and also the implementation of government plans for import substitution," the press-service said.
Under the just-concluded agreement the parties agreed on the training of specialists at local educational establishments and also on Rosneft’s participation in the development of a future Centre of Arctic Competences and on the creation in the Murmansk Region of a local branch of the Arctic Research and Design Centre of Offshore Projects.
The work to create a coastal logistics base began last year. Earlier, the regional government’s press office said the budget of the project’s first phase was estimated at 5.4 billion roubles ($100 million), and the overall costs of the project extending till 2025, at 18 billion ($330 million).
The area of the coastal base will range 120 hectares to 140 hectares. The industrial basis will be designed and built as an integral logistics complex, which would dramatically enhance the effectiveness of logistics. An industrial plant manufacturing equipment and materials for offshore projects and the accompanying transport infrastructures will constitute its key element. The coastal base will yield a tangible social effect. It will allow for creating up to 2,000 jobs over a period of five years. Most of its employees will be local residents.