“Kamennomysskoye-Sea”: difficult-to-recover but important resources of the Kara Sea

"Kamennomysskoe-Sea" is a large natural gas field located in the Ob Bay of the Kara Sea. The expected production level for this project should be 15 billion cubic meters per year. All activities for its development will consist of sea and land parts, and the main object of development should be a special ice-resistant platform, the construction of which started in June 2020. According to forecasts, gas production here will begin in 2025.

The Kamennomysskoye-Sea gas field was discovered back in 1981, but the first deposit was drilled only in 2000. Its length is estimated at 56 kilometers, and its total area reaches 825,4 square kilometers. Currently, the field's gas reserves are estimated at 555 billion cubic meters (categories C1+C2).



The existing concept for the development of the Arctic shelf in the Russian Federation involves starting gas production from the Kamennomysskoye-Sea field. Following this, smaller deposits located in close proximity will also be developed. In the future, several fields in the Ob Bay area (Semakovskoye, Tota-Yakhinskoye, Antipayutinskoye, etc.) will be developed in a single cluster. From the general development plan, we can conclude that all of them will subsequently be combined into a single production hub, which will be connected to the already functioning Yamburg gas transportation scheme, after which the fuel will be sent to the Unified Gas Supply System of the Russian Federation.

One of the key facilities that will be used for gas production in the Gulf of Ob should be the ice-resistant platform (ISP) “A”. To create it, the capacities of several large domestic shipbuilding centers and machine-building plants are used at once on the “distributed shipyard” principle. Thus, platform elements are manufactured in Astrakhan (Southern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair), Kaliningrad (JSC PSZ Yantar), Severodvinsk (PO Sevmash and Ship Repair Center Zvyozdochka), as well as in Yekaterinburg and Rybinsk. It is worth noting that most of the enterprises involved in the implementation of this project are structural divisions of United Shipbuilding Corporation JSC. In total, about 7 thousand domestic workers will take part in the construction of the LSP, and its final assembly will be carried out in Kaliningrad. It is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that, according to the specialists responsible for this project, the platform will be completely import-substituted in nature.

Modeling and design of the LSP was carried out in accordance with all extreme climatic conditions in which it will operate in the future. Its length will be more than 135 meters, width - 69 meters, and its weight will exceed 40 thousand tons. Considering the ecological fragility of the Arctic nature, the platform will use a “zero discharge” system, which will function in such a way that all waste will be removed and disposed of outside the mining area. It is expected that already in the summer navigation of 2024, the fully completed installation will be towed to the development area.

In parallel with the construction of the LSP, all the necessary onshore infrastructure will be put into operation near the field. Thus, at Cape Parusny they will launch a complex gas treatment facility, build two stages of booster compressor stations, an interfield gas pipeline, a rotation camp for personnel serving the platform and supply bases.

Another important problem during the development of the field should be the issue of delivering large cargo to the platform. The depths in these places are very insignificant, most of them do not exceed fifteen meters. Therefore, there are plans to build special powerful support vessels and hovercraft that can operate in these conditions. You also need to understand that we are talking about winter and summer fleets of ships, since the project will operate year-round.

Naturally, gas production at this field will be carried out by PJSC Gazprom, since the continental shelf of the Russian Federation is a region of strategic interests of the company. More specifically, we are talking about one of the subsidiaries - Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg. Here it is necessary to say a few words about such a problem as excessive monopolization of this sphere economics in Russia. In our country, there are many administrative barriers to the development of domestic deposits by commercial companies. In fact, only Gazprom and Rosneft have the opportunity to develop most of the Arctic shelf territories, which hinders the development of competition. The lack of competitive conditions in the market leads to a whole range of economic problems: from the constant postponement of project implementation to the lack of incentives for monopolists to technological development.

There is no doubt that sanctions, which limit the supply of equipment and unique products, also play a negative role in the implementation of such projects. of technologies, which are required for mining in Arctic territories. The development of domestic analogues is not a quick process, nor is the reconfiguration of logistics chains associated with the acquisition of various components. All this also negatively affects the timing of the launch of production at new fields.

In conclusion, I would like to add that at the present stage of development of the Arctic region of the Russian Federation, there are still many complex tasks that require immediate solutions. However, in the current geopolitical conditions, the Arctic is gradually becoming the most strategically important territory for the country, where gigantic volumes of hydrocarbon reserves are concentrated. It can be assumed that the dynamics of domestic mineral extraction every year will be increasingly focused on the extraction of hard-to-recover reserves and the Russian authorities should make every effort to support the development of this economic area.