MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. Rosatom is discussing with Lukoil and Gazprom Neft oil companies possibly redirection of part of the Arctic oil from the west to the east along the Northern Sea Route. Sergey Chemko, project manager of the project office for the development of the Arctic at the Russian nuclear corporation said on Monday.
"Here we show the potential of our oil producing companies: Lukoil (primarily the Varandey field) and Gazprom Neft (the Prirazlomnaya field). These fields are located outside the Northern Sea Route and previously they were also intended for supplies to the west. But now we have held preliminary talks on supplying part of cargo flow to the east. Why do I say about only part - that’s because it depends on the period of navigation and the use of tankers. Unfortunately, we do not yet have large numbers of ice-class tankers," he said during a round table in the Federation Council.
According to Chemko's presentation, we are talking about a potential cargo base of 3.6 million tons from the Prirazlomnaya field and 5.9 million tons from the Varandey field.
According to him, Rosatom offers companies to use ordinary tankers with guaranteed safety and icebreakers in summer-autumn navigation.
The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route and the main sea line in the Russian Arctic sector. It stretches along the northern coasts of Russia across the seas of the Arctic Ocean (Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering seas). The route consolidates the European and Far Eastern ports of Russia and navigable river mouths in Siberia into a single transport system. The route’s length is 5,600 km from the Kara Strait to Providence Bay.