Talk of a possible subsea solution for the giant Shtokman field in the Russian sector of the Barents Sea is starting to emerge, although it is little more than wishful thinking at present.

A senior Russian research scientist has suggested that a subsea solution would be the best option to tap gas fields under ice, and he went on to specifically mention Shtokman in this context. Oleg Timofeev, deputy director general of Russia’s Krylov State Research Center and chairman of the science and engineering board at the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, talks of underwater developments for all Arctic projects to avoid ice loading.

“New solutions are required for the offshore Arctic projects as the conditions there are absolutely different from conventional regions of navigation and maritime activities – standard approaches are not applicable there,” Timofeev said. “Generally speaking, all technologies for our Arctic projects will be probably associated with underwater facilities as horizontal ice load is a challenge for, let’s say, the Kara Sea. I refer to automated unmanned platforms. For example, Gazprom operates a subsea production complex at the Kirinsky field. Only three companies in the world manufacture such platforms [facilities] today. Such complexes can be designed for several wells and their average cost is about $200 million,” he said, according to one report in PortNews.

This appears to be backed up by one ‘Gazprom representative’ quoted in the same article, with Aleksey Novkikov saying that development of Shtokman gas and condensate will involve a subsea structure since a surface facility is regarded as “very costly.”

Timofeev points out that Gazprom already operates a subsea production complex at the Kirinsky field. “Only three companies in the world manufacture such platforms today. Such complexes can be designed for several wells and their average cost is about $200 million,” Timofeev said. He added: “One Airbus [air] craft costs $300 [million] while one icebreaker costs EUR 1 billion, a platform for Shtokman – approximately $4.5 billion. Therefore, nobody wants to risk here, with innovations in particular.”

The Gazprom-operated Kirinsky field lies in shallow water in Russia’s Far East Sakhalin III license area and produced first gas in October last year. However the scale for anything approaching a development of Shtokman would have be of a totally different scale, with any tieback to shore likely to have to reach around 500 km in length, so it is a project that is still unlikely to happen in the short to medium term.