According to Vagit Alekperov, Lukoil Chief Executive, in an interview to the Financial Times, Russia will end the exclusive rights given to Gazprom and Rosneft to explore the Arctic Oil & Gas fields.
So far these exclusive agreement has not given the expected results so that the oil production should start to decline in 2016 and would jeopardize the chance for Russia to meet their production targets for 2020.
The region within the North Arctic Circle is given to contain a fifth of the world’s unexplored oil & gas reserves. Opening access in that region to other Russian companies and foreign companies would sped up the development of the technologies to operate in extremely harsh conditions.
In parallel the consensus increases in Russia to reform the tax system on crude oil export to introduce a new profit variable profits based tax called NDD.
In this context, ExxonMobil has already formed a joined venture with Rosneft to explore the South Kara Sea, these regulations opening should also speed up decisions for Total and Statoil in Shtokman.
