KHARA-TUMUS PENINSULA, April 3. /TASS/. Oil major Rosneft started drilling Russia’s northernmost offshore Tsentralno Olginskaya-1 well at the Khatanga license area. Russian President Vladimir Putin formally kicked off the start of exploratory drilling during a teleconference with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.

"For the first time in history, drilling will be carried out on the Eastern Arctic continental shelf. The resource potential for the Laptev Sea alone, according to experts, reaches 9.5 bln tonnes of oil equivalent.

According to the results of seismic operations, Laptev Sea has 4 times more promising structures than have been identified earlier - 114 against 28. We expect that drilling in the Khatanga license area will be at least as successful as in the Kara Sea in 2014," Rosneft CEO said. 

New projects with Exxon 

Rosneft may resume drilling in the Kara Sea in 2019 in partnership with Exxon, Sechin told reporters.

"[Speaking about drilling in the Kara Sea - TASS], I was referring to our joint venture in partnership with Exxon. This joint venture operates, all the works are being carried out in compliance with the schedule. In accordance with that plan we are to start the next qualitative stage of work on this province in 2019," he said.

Sechin added that at a recent meeting with new head of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods in Moscow, this topic was also discussed.