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Our Arctic Neighbors: Russia plans safe development of Arctic Bureaucratic obstacles have been removed by bringing regulatory agencies together into one ministry, official tells conference Sarah Hurst For Petroleum News
Protecting the environment will be an integral part of Russia’s plan to develop Arctic oil and gas resources, a government official told the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromso, Norway, Jan. 19. Sergei Donskoy, deputy minister of natural resources and ecology, defended Russian practices in answers to questions from the audience about his country’s commitment to environmental standards.
Russia’s policies on all aspects of offshore Arctic development are set out in a federal program that should be finalized by the end of this year, Donskoy said. According to this program, between 2011 and 2020 Russia plans to enlarge the area under development to include the Barents, Kara, Laptev and Okhotsk seas.
“By the year 2020 we hope to get extensive information about the sea shelf area and we hope to discover huge resources of oil and gas,” Donskoy said. “… Up to 24 huge fields could be discovered in the Barents Sea.
“We expect the same amount in the Kara Sea, another three big oil and gas fields in the Laptev Sea and a couple in the Okhotsk Sea, with a total amount of oil up to 3 billion tons (21.9 billion barrels) and from 3 (trillion) to 5 trillion cubic meters (106 trillion to 176 trillion cubic feet) of gas. In addition to already discovered deposits, this will account for 17 billion tons of fuel concentrated in the area.”
When asked whether the Russian system of environmental impact assessments has been dismantled, Donskoy strongly denied that that had happened.
“What we are seeking is to make the environmental impact assessment more feasible, less bureaucratic, taking into account different threats and risks, in order to efficiently develop also the economic activities, including the production of hydrocarbons, by virtue of such projects which would not negatively impact the environment and breach environmental standards,” Donskoy said.
EIA-dedicated section The federal program that Donskoy referred to in his talk includes a whole section dedicated to environmental impact assessments, he said.
“I would like to highlight once again, no dismantling has ever taken place,” he continued. “Our entire activity in the field of environment and EIA was dictated, first of all, by the structural changes in our ministries and other governmental bodies, and secondly by the priorities set forth on the national level, specifically in respect to dismantling the administrative and bureaucratic barriers in the way of the economic activity of companies.”
The fact that ecology and natural resources are part of the same ministry does not prevent the ministry from performing a watchdog function with regard to the environment, Donskoy told a one questioner. The ministry brings together eight governmental agencies, including the technical standards regulator, the meteorological agency, and agencies for forestry and water resources, Donskoy said.
“The idea of reorganizing was to bring together all these functions under one ministry,” Donskoy told the conference. “We all speak about a comprehensive approach, about this synergy, and the resolution of environmental issues from the point of view of all aspects. ... We see very active work by my ministry, particularly about prospective development of the new environmental doctrine of the Russian Federation announced by my minister just lately. ... This provides us with an opportunity to produce good and nonconflicting decisions.”
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