Vostok Oil, a Rosneft project to develop oil fields in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, is left without Western money and imported technology due to sanctions and, thus, is in danger of being disrupted. It is reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing sources related to the project.
The publication recalled that the chief executive officer of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, called Vostok Oil "Noah's Ark of the global economy." Speaking at SPIEF, he said that Russia, including through the Vostok Oil project, can meet the needs of the world in affordable energy resources. However, the project relies on Western money and imported technology, the publication clarifies. According to sources, two important Western sponsors are already planning to withdraw from the project. At the same time, the sanctions have delayed or restricted everything from drilling equipment and software to ice-class tankers. Experts clarify that Russia is now benefiting enormously from high energy prices, but this is a "short-term gain compared to a long-term loss."
Energy research firm Rystad Energy expects Vostok Oil's key asset, known as the Payakhskoye field, to come online only by 2029, not 2024 as Rosneft had planned. “Any delays in one part of the huge supply chain involved in the project will delay the entire project,” said Daria Melnik, senior analyst at Rystad Energy. The delay in the implementation of the project and the reduction in overall oil production in Russia due to sanctions can undermine the country's economy and its geopolitical position in the long term, writes WSJ.
The Vostok Oil project includes Lodochnoye, Vankorskoye, Suzunskoye, Tagulskoye, Payakhskoye and other fields located on the Taimyr Peninsula in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. As Vedomosti wrote , the resource potential of the Vostok Oil project is light low-sulfur oil, which is superior in quality to Brent oil. The potential for oil supply to commodity markets was estimated at 25 million tons by 2024, 50 million tons by 2027, and up to 115 million tons by 2030. An LNG plant was also planned as part of the project. In addition, the implementation of the project provided for the creation of the largest seaport in the Arctic zone, power generation facilities, more than 200 oil production facilities, over 2,500 km of main and 7,000 km of infield pipelines, and 15 field support bases.
Last year, the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied Rosneft's claim against Bloomberg. The company filed a lawsuit over an article alleging that the Russian authorities were going to spend money from the National Wealth Fund on investments in infrastructure, Vostok Oil was named among the likely recipients of this money. The court ordered Bloomberg to remove the article and publish a retraction. The authors of the article, Anna Andrianova and Evgenia Pismenny, were ordered to pay six thousand rubles each to Rosneft as compensation for paying the state fee.