Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a conference call with Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee Alexei Miller, who is at the Prirazlomnaya offshore ice-resistant stationary platform.
The platform is located on the Pechora Sea shelf 60 kilometres off the shore (at the Prirazlomnoye oilfield) and is designed to operate in extreme natural and weather conditions, can withhold maximum ice impact and meets world environmental standards. A full range of technological operations can be performed on the Prirazlomnaya platform, including drilling, oil extraction, storage, treatment and shipping.
Miller is expected to provide an update on the status of the first crude oil shipment from the field.
Prirazlomnaya
The platform, beside the fact that it is the first Arctic-class ice-resistant oil platform in the world, raised media attention after Greenpeace activists climbed aboard in September last year.
The whole project has been heavily criticized by environmental groups. Greenpeace has said that the actions by the Russian oil and gas giant will raise the risk of an oil spill in an area that contains three nature reserves protected by Russian law.
World’s first
The field was discovered in 1989. It is located on the Pechora Sea shelf 60 kilometers off the shore (Varandey settlement) at the water depth of 19 to 20 meters.
Production from the field began in December, 2013, making Gazprom the first company in the world to produce commercial volumes of oil from beneath the Arctic seabed.