ARKHANGELSK, September 29. /TASS/. Western sanctions on supplies of equipment and technologies for deep-water drilling have their hindering effect but are not critical for the development of the Russian Arctic shelf, a Russian academician told TASS on Tuesday on the sidelines of an international scientific conference in Russia’s northwestern city of Arkhangelsk.
"This is not a factor destructive for our industry," said Nikolay Laverov, member of the presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "We keep developing, and we have used to be at a good level on many positions. So I think there is nothing to fear," the academician added.
The development of horizontal drilling technologies was seeing the hardest effect from the sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine. "It is horizontal holes that we are drilling on the shelf," he said, noting that this necessitated high-quality materials, highly qualified specialists, technologies of hydraulic fracturing and liquids boosting this process.
"No country can do it all only at the domestic level," he said.
The academician also said that sanctions were pushing the country towards creating its own technologies. "This is very important, but this has its cost. It is necessary to teach people, produce hardware, create new technologies etc.," he noted.
"Of course, it would be better to work with the global community. My experience of activity in Rosneft [oil major] showed that we easily adopt foreign technologies, high-quality geophysics, mathematic methods of processing," the academician continued.
The scientific cooperation on the exploration of coastal areas of the Arctic zone has brought together representatives from Russia, Norway, South Korea and Japan.
European Union officials imposed sanctions against the Russian Federation over Moscow’s stance on developments in neighbouring Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia in August last year, repeatedly extending them later. The latest decision to extend sanctions was made in June this year.
Russia imposed a package of counter-measures also last August in response to sanctions introduced by the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union and Norway.