Statoil strategists believe Russian energy company Gazprom will move to create Shtokman infrastructure within seven years, building pipelines “from south to north” in tandem with Norwegian development.

“We believe the (liquefied natural gas) potential in the region is so great that it could create an Atlantic gas market,” Statoil vice president for Strategy in the Barents Sea Region, Hans Gjennestad, told Scandinavian Oil-Gas Magazine .

To boost Barents Sea infrastructure-building, Statoil aims to double Snoehvit production to 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent by 2015. A doubling of the LNG carrier fleet to eight is envisioned with a Snohvit Train II reining in area satellite fields.

The 1.5-million-square-kilometre triangle formed between Spitzbergen, Novaya Zemlya and northern Norway is four times the size of Germany and contains up to 5 trillion cubic metres of “discovered reserves only”, Gjennestad said. The Troll field, Europe’s largest offshore, is 1.2 trillion bcm.

“This is the main reason we believe it’s going to become the new province,” he adde, adding, "The resources will significantly increase industrial activity in northern Norway (and Russia)."

Gjennestad this week said he saw Shtokman infrastructure in place by 2014, in contrast to a wildly differing estimate from Norwegian environmentalist and European Union climate-change panelist, Frederick Hauge, who sees no Shtokman action before 2034.

In-line with Statoil’s estimates, Russian planners this week told OilGas24 in Murmansk that Shtokman-building would be underway by 2013 to 2015.

The Russian decision in 2006 to develop Yamal Island fields in the Arctic is now seen as the signal for a start to Russia-sector Barents Sea developments, Gjennestad explained.

<ws@oilgas24.com>