4 artificial islands in the Barents Sea. Military pensioners for Russia and its armed forces

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved a plan of priority measures for the creation in the Barents Sea of a Center for the construction of large-capacity offshore structures - artificial islands on which gas production, as well as the operation and repair of marine equipment, will be carried out.

“The center is intended for the manufacture of offshore complexes for the production, storage and shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and stable gas condensate on gravity-type foundations, offshore production complexes, as well as repair and maintenance of marine equipment and equipment used for the development of offshore oil and gas condensate fields,” - indicated in the message of the Cabinet of Ministers.

The document also explains that the construction of artificial land plots in the Kola Bay is necessary to accommodate the center’s facilities. Artificial land will be created at the expense of Kola Shipyard LLC’s own funds. The volume of capital investments for the project will amount to more than 25 billion rubles.

Kola Shipyard LLC received permission from Rosmorrechflot to create artificial land plots on a water body. The signed order of Kola Shipyard LLC determined the person with whom Rosmorrechflot will conclude an agreement on the creation of four artificial land plots in the Kola Bay Barents Sea", the text explains.

In addition, the explanatory note states that the construction of the center will create about 10 thousand jobs at the shipyard itself, increase tax revenues to budgets of all levels, attract additional investment to the region, and develop new high-tech production.

The administrative address of the facility will be the village of Belokamenka in the closed administrative-territorial formation of Aleksandrovsk Murmansk region. In addition, it recommended that the federal executive authorities, the authorities of the Murmansk region and local self-government help in reducing the time required for registering land plots for the construction of the center, as well as the time required for conducting examinations and issuing permits. Local authorities have also been asked to consider providing tax relief on taxes.

Construction in Belokamenka will be carried out as part of the Arctic LNG project, which involves the production of 16.5 million tons of liquefied natural gas per year. The resource base for it will be the Gydan deposits. Deputy Chairman of the Board of NOVATEK Denis Khramov previously said that together with Yamal LNG (the company’s second gas liquefaction project of similar capacity), Arctic LNG will be able to occupy about 7% of the global liquefied gas market.

In July 2015, the minister natural resources Russia addressed the Prime Minister with a letter in which he put forward an initiative to review existing restrictions on the access of non-state companies to the Murmansk gas field in the Barents Sea.

According to Donskoy, after the decree of the Russian President on liberalizing access to the shelf, proposals on this topic were submitted to the government for consideration, but no final decision was made. The President, who, along with Gazprom, was issued documents giving the right to explore and develop fields, previously expressed protest against the appearance of other companies on the shelf.

According to the director of Small Letters, the shelf field in Murmansk will only be effective in the form of a project focused on the export of liquefied natural gas. On this moment Rosneft and Yamal LNG have permission to export LNG.

A year earlier, it was reported that Gazprom and Rosneft received rights to two shelf areas.

In August 2014, Gazprom received the right to use the Kheisovsky subsoil plot with an area of 83,590 square meters. km located in the Barents Sea. Forecast resources for oil are 393.7 million tons (geological resources) and 118.1 million tons (recoverable resources), for gas - 2081.4 billion cubic meters. m, for condensate - 32.6 million tons (geological resources) and 22.8 million tons (recoverable resources). At the same time, Rosneft was granted the rights to use the Pritaimyrsky subsoil plot with an area of 20,619 square meters. km in the Laptev Sea. The Pritaimyrsky area has predicted geological oil resources of 348.6 million tons, recoverable resources - 104.6 million tons, gas - 362.8 billion cubic meters. m.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on the creation of four artificial islands in the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea. According to experts, this will significantly simplify the development of mineral deposits located in this region. However, this is not the first such project in Russia. RT found out for what other purposes the new land is being created.

Four artificial islands will be created in the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea. The corresponding order was signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on June 15. The construction of new islands was entrusted to the Kola Shipyard company

On the islands themselves there will be a “Center for the Construction of Large-Capacity Offshore Structures”, where complexes for offshore mining will be created.

“The center is intended for the manufacture of offshore complexes for the production, storage and shipment of liquefied natural gas and stable gas condensate on gravity-type foundations, offshore production complexes, as well as repair and maintenance of marine equipment and equipment used for the development of offshore oil and gas condensate fields,” it is specified on Cabinet website.

Kola Shipyard is a subsidiary of Novatek, which decided to invest 25 billion rubles in the project. The project will help create about 10 thousand jobs and attract new investments to the region.

Experience available

Russia began to create artificial islands several centuries ago, both to expand territories and for military purposes. At the beginning of the 18th century, Turtle Island was built in the Sea of Azov, where the citadel was located. The island later lost its strategic importance, but today parts of it can still be seen at low tide.

And today in Russia the creation of artificial land plots is actively underway. Director of environmental programs of the Green Patrol, Roman Pukalov, noted that there are already similar successful projects in Russia. Thus, embankment dams were created in the Kerch Strait during the construction of the Crimean Bridge.

“There were similar projects, the same Tuzlinskaya Spit, which goes from Taman towards Kerch - this is largely an artificial structure. Building Kerch Bridge, the spit expanded, was replenished and modified,” explains the expert.

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© Serguei Fomine

The bridge across the Kerch Strait will connect Crimea and Krasnodar region. It is planned that it will become the longest in Russia. Its length will be 19 km. Motorists will be able to try out the new bridge in December 2018.

As RT reported, builders have already completed the assembly of the railway arch.

Projects for a better life

In 2006, expansion of the western part began in St. Petersburg Vasilyevsky Island. The area of the new territories of the island will be about 476 hectares. The project, called "Marine Façade", is one of the largest coastal development projects in the world.

The expansion of the island has not yet been completed, but a specialized sea port which is popular among foreign tourists.

In the future, residential buildings, schools, hospitals and commercial facilities will also be built on this part of the island.

Solving many problems

As Sergei Pikin, director of the Energy Development Fund, notes, this is an important step for Russia, since at the moment there are not many similar projects in our country. In addition, according to the expert, artificial land plots will help simplify the extraction of natural resources, since the necessary complexes will be located on them.

“The system of constructing artificial islands is the most advantageous, because it will help solve many problems associated with infrastructure,” the expert believes.

Ecologist Roman Pukalov notes that such construction requires not only a well-thought-out project, but also an independent environmental assessment.

“The Kola Bay is a natural environment; we need to look very carefully at how the current flows through the bay itself, whether this will interfere with the movement of aquatic organisms, and when the work will be carried out in order to avoid disturbance factors during the spawning period. This all needs to be thought through very carefully,” says the ecologist.

MOSCOW, June 17 – RIA Novosti. Four artificial islands will appear in the Barents Sea - Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on the creation of land plots in the Kola Bay for the Center for the Construction of Large-Capacity Offshore Structures. This is part of a large-scale project for the development of gas fields in Yamal, which is being developed by the Novatek company.

The construction contract will be concluded between Rosmorrechflot and OJSC Kola Shipyard (a subsidiary of Novatek).

The center is intended for the manufacture of offshore complexes for the production, storage and shipment of liquefied natural gas, as well as for the repair and maintenance of marine equipment and equipment used for the development of offshore oil and gas condensate fields.

The islands will be created at the expense of the Kola Shipyard’s own funds; the volume of capital investments will amount to more than 25 billion rubles. The enterprise has already received the appropriate permission from Rosmorrechflot.

“The construction of the center will create about 10 thousand jobs at the shipyard itself, increase tax revenues to budgets of all levels, attract additional investments to the region, and develop new high-tech production,” the document notes.

Strategic investment project

A center for the construction of large-tonnage offshore structures is planned to be created in the village of Belokamenka, Murmansk region, by the end of 2020. The first dry dock should be commissioned in the first half of 2019.

In early June, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Novatek signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the conclusion of a special investment contract with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Government of the Murmansk Region, which consolidates the parties’ intentions to conclude a trilateral special investment contract for the creation of the Kola Shipyard.

“For the effective development of the huge resource base of the Far North, reducing construction costs and increasing the competitiveness of our future LNG projects, we consider it extremely important to create a Center for the construction of large-capacity offshore structures in Russia. With the help of the Kola Shipyard, we plan to achieve maximum localization of LNG plants on platform foundations gravitational type and their readiness for production,” said then Chairman of the Board of Novatek Leonid Mikhelson.

Governor of the Murmansk region Marina Kovtun, in turn, noted the scale of the planned investment volume - more than 50 billion rubles for the first stage. Therefore, the project was given the status of a strategic investment project of the Murmansk region, she explained.

According to Kovtun, the decision to build the center was also made because the region is simultaneously implementing a project for the integrated development of the Murmansk transport hub, which will provide the western shore of the Kola Bay with a railway.

Gas from Yamal

Yamal is the richest place in terms of gas reserves. According to the Governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Dmitry Kobylkin, taking into account the resources of the Gydan Peninsula in Yamal, it is possible to produce more than 70 million tons of LNG. Novatek is actively working in the region.

Thus, the modules that will be produced at the Kola Shipyard are intended for the new center for the production of liquefied natural gas, which Novatek plans to build on the Gydan Peninsula.

Its resource base will be the Utrenneye oil and gas condensate field with reserves of more than 1.2 trillion cubic meters. The project concept involves the construction of a complex on platforms in the Gulf of Ob near the coastline of the peninsula.

This LNG plant will be the second in Yamal. Novatek is already building the first as part of the Yamal LNG project, which is being implemented on the resource base of the South Tambeyskoye field. The total capacity of the plant is 16.5 million tons per year. In total, it is planned to build three lines, the first of which should be put into operation this year, and the enterprise will reach full capacity in 2019.

The Sabetta seaport will provide year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route. The latest gas tankers are being built for LNG transportation - the first of them was recently named in honor of the French entrepreneur, head of the Total oil company Christophe de Margerie, who died in 2014 in a disaster at Vnukovo airport, and a total of 15 such ships should be built.

As stated by Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, the launch of Yamal LNG at full capacity will increase the volume of gas exports by more than 10 percent and increase Russia's share in the global LNG market to 8-9 percent.

Why spend a lot of money to create artificial embankments in the Kola Bay?

Comment on the material:
Igor Yushkov
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on the creation of four artificial islands in the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea. They will be poured by Kola Shipyard LLC (a subsidiary of Novatek OJSC). The corresponding document was published on the government website. It follows from it that the Kola Shipyard is going to conclude an agreement with Rosmorrechflot. And the islands are poured in for a reason, but for the implementation of a project called “Center for the Construction of Large-Capacity Offshore Structures.”

It was previously reported that Novatek would invest more than 25 billion rubles in the project. The project provides for the creation of a specialized shipyard capable of producing unique offshore objects - gravity-type reinforced concrete platforms for LNG plants, drilling and production platforms for offshore projects in the western sector of the Arctic and large-tonnage structures to support the operation of the Northern Sea Route. It is expected that the construction of the Center will create about 10 thousand jobs, increase tax revenues to the budget, attract additional investments to the region and contribute to the process of import substitution and localization of technologies.

The islands are planned to be created near the village of Belokamenka in the Murmansk region. They will be built as part of the Arctic-LNG-1 and Arctic-LNG-2 projects, which involve, in particular, the development of the Gydana field in the Gulf of Ob Kara Sea. Construction of the shipyard could begin before the end of the year, with the first floating LNG plants to be laid down in 2018. The construction of the Center for the Construction of Large-Capacity Offshore Structures is planned to be completed by 2020.

The first question that arises when reading this information is - why invest billions in the construction of new islands? We are not in Japan, where there is not enough land.

Residents of the Murmansk region are skeptical about the news. Here’s what Igor Opimakh, a journalist from the city of Polyarny, writes on Facebook: “Have you all read it? Medvedev ordered the construction of four islands in the Barents Sea. On the government website they specify: in the middle knee of the Kola Bay. It looks like the Khan will come to Roslyakov Bay and especially to Gryaznaya Bay, it’s shallow there, the best thing to do is fill up the drain and make profanity: we have created artificial islands.

Indeed, the idea of building islands raises many questions, says Igor Yushkov, leading expert of the National Energy Security Fund, teacher at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. - Initially, the project was announced differently - it was assumed that gas liquefaction work would be carried out on the shore of the Kola Bay in the village of Belokamenka. It was planned to build two dry docks there and lay the foundations for gas liquefaction plants. These units were to be delivered to the Gulf of Ob and connected into a single LNG plant, the gas for which would be supplied from fields in this area. In particular, from the Gydan Peninsula.

Novatek has already won several auctions for the development of gas fields, having previously lobbied for the condition that gas from these fields must be liquefied. And since, apart from this company, no one in Russia is particularly involved in the construction of LNG plants, Novotek is, in fact, the only participant in these auctions.

Now, in order to develop the resulting resource base, the company is concerned with the construction of what is officially called the “Center for the Construction of Large-Capacity Offshore Structures.” Although it is unclear what will be built there. At first they said that there would only be the lower part of that same floating platform. Then - that there will be some kind of upper superstructure. But why artificial islands are needed for this is difficult to understand. Moreover, the amount allocated for this is very large.

"SP": - In general, is the Arctic LNG project expensive?

The original meaning of the project to build a Center in the Kola Bay was precisely to implement it in a fairly developed region of the Arctic. That is, to develop and modernize something that has already been built, saving on it. Otherwise, it was possible to create everything from scratch closer to the place of gas production - in Yamal.

Novotek has repeatedly stated that Arctic LNG will be one third cheaper than Yamal LNG, which is already being sold. It was planned to achieve cost reduction by locating gas liquefaction plants on gravity platforms. Apparently, using the example of Yamal LNG, they realized that building a plant on land in permafrost conditions is not a cheap pleasure. Especially in conditions when the permafrost is melting, and the land under the LNG plant can turn into a swamp.

And a significant part of the equipment has to be delivered by plane. Just recently, another Ruslan landed in Yamal with 70 tons of equipment on board. All this is difficult and expensive.

In addition, the Yamal-LNG project involves very diverse cooperation: gas liquefaction technology was taken from the Americans, the liquefaction units themselves were assembled in China, which were then transported to Yamal to the port of Sabetta.

I think that Novatek is trying to attract investors with the project to build a floating LNG plant. However, when the Yamal LNG project was being implemented, hydrocarbons were expensive, so it was not difficult to find investors. Now the picture is different. The company is trying to save money by making the project purely domestic. And at the same time create a Center for LNG Technologies. That is, on the one hand, they strive to fit into the import substitution program, and on the other, to attract foreign investors. Thus, there is a chance to receive money from the state, which will go towards the development of the Murmansk transport hub.

I think that Novatek still wants to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the Russian government in the sense that Yamal LNG was almost entirely implemented using imported equipment and with the participation of foreign companies - German, American, Chinese - there was not much Russian there . Despite the fact that the construction of the port of Sabetta and dredging work were carried out at public expense. That is, there was “nationalization of costs” and “privatization” of profits from the project. This time they want to show that everything will be different, but no one has yet clearly explained why bulk islands are needed. That is, a “frugal” project begins with questionable expenses.

"SP": - How can sanctions affect the LNG-Arctic project? Is it known that the United States has imposed a ban on the supply of equipment for hydrocarbon production on the shelf?

Sanctions so far apply only to oil production, although it is often difficult to separate it from gas production. Usually these types of hydrocarbons are adjacent. Even during the Barack Obama administration, the Europeans persuaded the Americans not to impose sanctions on the Russian gas industry. In addition, the fields that Novatek is currently developing are mainly located in the Gulf of Ob and are considered not shelf, but simply offshore. However, as far as I have information, all deliveries for this project have already been completed. The company was in a hurry to purchase equipment in advance in case the Americans nevertheless imposed sanctions on the gas production industry in Russia.

"SP": - Does the state bear the risks if the projects of the private company Novotek turn out to be unprofitable?

State participation in the company is slightly less than 10%. If we talk about the Yamal LNG project, the state has allocated about 300 billion rubles for its implementation. If we assume that due to a sharp decline in hydrocarbon prices, Arctic gas production will be unprofitable for a long time and the company will go bankrupt, then returning this amount to the state is quite problematic. In addition, for quite a long time, Novatek is exempt from paying export duties and from the mineral extraction tax (mineral extraction tax). So far, the state has received very little from Novatek’s Arctic projects.

So far, very little information about the project has been brought to our attention,” says Sergei Pravosudov, director of the Institute of National Energy. - I think that literally a few specialists close to the management of Novatek are devoted to the details. It is known that the bet will be made not on stationary LNG on shore, but on a floating platform. But why bulk islands are needed, and even so far from the place of gas production, is completely unclear. For example, the Royal Dutch Shell company is implementing a similar project with a floating LNG plant in Australia, but does not plan to fill up any islands for this.

Four artificial islands will be created in the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea. The corresponding order was signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on June 15. The Kola Shipyard company was entrusted with the construction of new islands.

The Center for the Construction of Large-Capacity Offshore Structures will operate on the islands themselves, where complexes for offshore mining will be created.

“The center is intended for the manufacture of offshore complexes for the production, storage and shipment of liquefied natural gas and stable gas condensate on gravity-type foundations, offshore production complexes, as well as the repair and maintenance of marine equipment and equipment used for the development of offshore oil and gas condensate fields,” it is specified on Cabinet website.

Kola Shipyard is a subsidiary of Novatek, which decided to invest 25 billion rubles in the project. The project will help create about 10 thousand jobs and attract new investments to the region.

Experience available

Russia began creating artificial islands several centuries ago, both to expand its territory and for military purposes. At the beginning of the 18th century, Turtle Island was built in the Sea of Azov, where the citadel was located. Later the island lost its strategic importance, but parts of it can still be seen at low tide.

“There were similar projects, the same Tuzlinskaya Spit, which goes from Taman towards Kerch - this is largely an artificial structure. When the Kerch Bridge was built, the spit expanded, was filled up and modified,” explains the expert.

globallookpress.com
Serguei Fomine

The bridge across the Kerch Strait will connect Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory. It is planned that it will become the longest in Russia. Its length will be 19 km. Motorists will be able to try out the new bridge in December 2018.

The builders have already completed the assembly of the railway arch.

Projects for a better life

In 2006, expansion of the western part of Vasilyevsky Island began in St. Petersburg. The area of the new territories of the island will be about 476 hectares. The project, called Marine Façade, is one of the world's largest coastal development projects.

www.mfspb.ru

The expansion of the island has not yet been completed, but there is already a specialized seaport operating there, which is popular among foreign tourists.

In the future, residential buildings, schools, hospitals and commercial facilities will also be built on this part of the island.

Solving many problems

As Sergei Pikin, director of the Energy Development Fund, notes, this is an important step for Russia, since there are currently not many similar projects operating in our country. In addition, according to the expert, artificial land plots will help simplify the extraction of natural resources, since the necessary complexes will be located on them.

“The system of constructing artificial islands is the most advantageous, because it will help solve many problems associated with infrastructure,” the expert believes.

Ecologist Roman Pukalov notes that such construction requires not only a well-thought-out project, but also an independent environmental assessment.

“The Kola Bay is a natural environment; we need to look very carefully at how the current flows through the bay itself, whether this will impede the movement of aquatic organisms, and when the work will be carried out in order to avoid the disturbance factor during the spawning period. This needs to be thought through very carefully,” says the ecologist.