Rosneft will conduct marine fauna monitoring in the Northern Sea Route in 2014. The studies will be organized by the Arctic Research Center, a joint venture of Rosneft and ExxonMobil.
The objective of the said studies is a collection of data on marine fauna in Rosneft License Areas with a view to building a complete and detailed picture of the baseline environment state and developing a set of environmental controls to be applied during hydrocarbons exploration and production. The studies will cover animals, birds and mammals of northern seas. The said activities will be conducted on two icebreakers by several marine mammal observation teams. During the entire period of the vessels voyage along the Northern Sea Route (from this July through this October) marine mammal observation and marine fauna monitoring will be conducted. A set of surveys will be performed: – Marine mammal activity monitoring and registration throughout daylight hours; – Monitoring and registration of other marine animal species’ activity; – Keeping record of visual observations of marine mammals and their activity. The survey activities are planned in all northern seas of the Arctic.