ST. PETERSBURG, June 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s oil major Rosneft plans to invest about $400 billion in the Arctic shelf programme in the next 20 years, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said on Thursday, adding that its multiplicative effect was expected to increase this sum by more than seven times.

“Rosneft’s investments in the Arctic shelf programme will amount to about $400 billion in the next 20 years,” he said at a meeting on the Arctic development chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We expect this programme to yield a multiplicative effect, which, according to the Russian Academy of Sciences, might be as high as by 7.7 times.”

The Arctic development might serve as a driving force for economic development of the entire country, the Rosneft CEO noted.

This year, his said, the company planned to begin drilling of the first prospecting well Universitetskaya-1 in the Kara Sea. The oil and gas bearing area there extended across 1,200 square metres, with the oil and gas bearing layer 500 metres thick, he noted, adding that more oil and gas fields were likely to be discovered at the Kara Sea. “According to preliminary seismic data, we have discovered about 34 oil and gas bearing structures,” he stressed.