MOSCOW, May 26. /TASS/. In the long-term perspective of 25 years and beyond, Russia will have to develop yet-undiscovered oil fields and provinces in order to maintain oil production levels, Russian First Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said.
"In the perspective of 25-plus years, in order to maintain production, we will already need to work with those fields and provinces that have not yet been discovered. This is a major challenge, but we have everything necessary to accomplish it," Sorokin said.
He noted that the Soviet legacy has already been largely depleted. "We cannot always rely on what our ancestors and predecessors created. Enormous work was carried out, oil and gas provinces were discovered and developed, Eastern Siberia, Central Asia, naturally Western Siberia, but now this potential has largely been exhausted," the first deputy minister explained.
According to him, the energy strategy is divided into stages. Over the next 10 years, work will focus on mature fields, the introduction of new technologies and import substitution for services previously provided by companies from unfriendly countries. After that, it will be necessary to move into new regions -- developing Eastern Siberia, Taimyr and the continental shelf.
"And today it can indeed be said that work with hard-to-recover reserves is the future of the Russian oil and gas sector," Sorokin concluded.