Starting from 2020 Rosneft Oil Company has launched a unique program for stratigraphic drilling in the seas of the Russian Arctic – RoSDAr (Rosneft Stratigraphic Drilling in Arctic). The main objective of the project is to obtain direct data on the geological structure of insufficiently explored parts of the Arctic shelf, where there was no parametric drilling. For this purpose, key technological aspects of the implementation of the stratigraphic drilling program for all seas of the Russian Arctic were developed. Carrying out such works includes the integration of drilling methods, geophysical studies of wells and high-frequency seismoacoustic surveys based on domestic methodological approaches and innovative equipment designed specifically for the tasks of the project. The technologies used during the project make it possible to work in hard-to-reach Arctic regions. During the implementation of the project (2020-2023), large-scale works were carried out in the north of the Kara Sea, in the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea, unique geological material was obtained. The obtained data make it possible to remove key geological uncertainties concerning the sedimentary rocks of the studied regions. A fundamentally important part of the project implementation is the integration of core analysis data from stratigraphic wells with the results of previous geological and geophysical work, which allows us to obtain the most reliable models of the studied regions for a reasonable forecast of their oil and gas potential and increase the efficiency of exploration works. The implemented program of shallow-depth stratigraphic drilling is one of the key milestones of geological research of the Arctic shelf, having not only a unique fundamental scientific, but also of primary applied importance for the further development of the Russian Arctic.
References
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