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    1. Regional Reports
    2. Russia

    Rosneft conducting further drilling studies offshore northern Russia

    Sept. 3, 2021
    Rosneft has dispatched the drilling vessel Bavenit to the Laptev Sea to drill shallow stratigraphic wells and take cores for scientific purposes.
    (Courtesy Rosneft)
    The drilling vessel Bavenit.
    The drilling vessel Bavenit.

    Offshore staff

    MURMANSK, Russia – Rosneft has dispatched the drilling vessel Bavenit to the Laptev Sea to drill shallow stratigraphic wells and take cores for scientific purposes.

    The company will use the materials gathered to support geological studies to determine the age (stratification), composition, and formation conditions of sedimentary rocks in the East Arctic shelf region.

    As a result, Rosneft expects scientists to construct a reliable geological model of the region and to be able to estimate its oil and gas potential.

    Since 2012, the company’s Arctic Research Centre has organized more than 30 expeditions to Russia’s polar regions, said to be the largest-scale studies of the Arctic since the Soviet era.

    The Bavenit is equipped with specialized equipment allowing it to drill to a depth of 500 m (1,640 ft), speeding up the coring process and improving the quality of rock samples taken. Also onboard is fiber optic geophysical equipment designed to tie the core to the seismic section.

    Core samples will be lab-tested by Innopraktika and the Lomonosov Moscow State University Faculty of Geology. Currently these laboratories are analyzing rock samples taken in 2020 in the north of the Kara Sea following a similar campaign.

    09/03/2021