Eastern energy policy of Russia

Over the past few years the topic of development of Russia’s eastern regions has become one of the priorities in statements by top state officials. So, now it indeed seems to have become priority of state policy.

Thus, development of eastern oil and gas deposits and construction of pipelines is becoming an important goal. And other projects are unlikely to be implemented in this region that has no infrastructure and sufficient labor force but has complicated climate conditions. We can speculate about non-mining industries as much as possible, but their development in Eastern Siberia is unlikely to be economically logical.

The focus on the East can be easily explained. Our difficulties in relations with the EU are too evident. Meanwhile, Asia has become the main driver of growth in the world demand for energy sources. It would be silly to miss this relatively new market for Russia.

However, not every theory becomes practical. The National Energy Security Fund tries to assess the real situation around development of Eastern Siberian oil and gas projects.

Key topics of the report:

• Resource base of eastern projects

  • Dynamic of geological prospecting
  • Licensing policy of the state – who owns major reserves in the East?

• Oil infrastructure and production

  • Correspondence of the pace of launch of new pipeline capacities and new production projects
  • The necessity to transfer oil from Western Siberia

• Domestic demand in the region, marketing policy

  • Correspondence of production levels to sales plans

• Export policies

  • Feasibility of sealing gas contracts with China and Japan
  • Political showdown for oil exports to China: reasons and consequences

• Implementation of Eastern Gas Program

  • Dynamic of development of Yakutian and Irkutsk gas deposits
  • Situation with gas production in Sakhalin

• Gas transmit projects

  • "Power of Siberia" – timeframes and prices

• Problems of oil refining and gas chemistry development in the region

• Prospects of developments

The contents of the report: