According to the Order of the Government of the Russian Federation the OMR 2018 International Offshore and Maritime Exhibition and Conference was held in St. Petersburg on October 2 - 5. Leading players on the Shipbuilding and Fuel and Energy Complex markets, authorities and scientists gathered at one site to discuss the most important aspects of the Arctic Development.
PLENARY MEETING
Plenary meeting was held during Day 1 of the OMR 2018, where strategic goals of the Northern Sea Route development, Arctic development infrastructural and industrial aspects were discussed. The discussion attracted great interest of the professionals and pointed out a series of key issues that were raised later on at the Conference.
The Arctic zone holds an immense resource potential, reminded Denis Khramov, the First Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, in the course of his speech. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources the already proven reserves include 55 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, 7.3 billion tons of oil and 2.7 billion tons of gas condensate. Besides, there are deposits of coal, copper, nickel and rear-earth metals.
The Arctic resource potential is sufficient to cover the needs of the internal market and export shipments. In the period from 2018 until 2026 Rosneft and Gazprom will be carrying out works for the drilling of 80 additional exploration wells. Due to the extensive production growth, a significant freight turnover is expected. By 2040 the volume of shipments via the Northern Sea Route will exceed 200 million tons. Accordingly, the Northern Sea Route harbor facilities shall be prepared for it, noticed Alexander Gladkov, Head of Oil and Gas Department, Russian Federation Ministry of Energy.
Besides, a powerful icebreaking fleet is also required for the normal operation of the Northern Sea Route. As it was mentioned by Vyacheslav Ruksha, Director of the Northern Sea Route Direction of the Rosatom State Corporation, the currently available atomic icebreakers are getting older and will soon exhaust their performance potential. In 2017 planned activities were completed to extend the life of the “Taymyr” and “Vaygach” icebreakers reactor plants to 200,000 hours. In such a manner the atomic vessels lifetime was extended for 5 years until the new generation icebreakers are ready to replace them.
Active works are carried out on the 10510 Leader project vessels. Their main objective is the provision of all-year navigation in the Arctic seas. – According to the scale, investments, advance, the Development of Arctic and the Northern Sea Route is equal to the 20th century space program – says Andrey Shishkin, Vice-president for Energy, Localization and Innovation of Rosneft. – As a matter of fact we need a leapfrog, a transition to creation of new formation vessels. According to Mr. Shishkin, it will not take long until ice class tankers using natural gas vehicle fuel emerge – it will happen within a year, when regulatory documents that allow the use not only of marine fuel, but also natural gas vehicle fuel in the Arctic region, are passed and come into force.
Plenary meeting was also attended by Alexander KALINKIN, Deputy Head of Department, Gazprom PJSC, Sergey MATROSOV, Head of Department of Business Development and Government Onshore Regulation, Gazprom Neft PJSC, Viktor IKONNIKOV, Deputy Head of Arkhangelsk Region Government, and Olga KUZNETSOVA, Deputy Governor of Murmansk Region, Roman SAMSONOV, Head of Gas and Arctic Sector, SKOLKOVO Energy Centre, and other officials.
Does Russia need to continue the oil production development in Arctic? What technical means and technologies are required for transportation? How to consolidate Russia’s positions on the market of energy resources especially in the multiyear ice areas? How to preserve the fragile Arctic ecosystem? Scientists and professionals, authorities and business, field-specific developers and manufacturers tried to find answers to the above questions in the framework of the OMR2018 conference sessions.
CONFERENCE
An eventful business program was prepared for the participants and guests of OMR 2018. Several discussion platforms of various thematic scope worked simultaneously to allow discussing multiple current issues of the Arctic development at the modern stage and the prospects for the nearest 20-25 years.
121 reports were made during the four days of work on various issues: shipbuilding, infrastructure for the Northern Sea Route operation, energy infrastructure for the Arctic zone, fleet development for the navigation provision in the Northern Sea Route area, means for rescue and emergency prevention, as well as oil and gas resources development prospects in the onshore and offshore areas of the Arctic zones.
For the first time the OMR 2018 Conference program included a special workshop organized by GAZPROM and Norwegian oil and gas companies dedicated to the problems of the oil and gas resources development on the Arctic continental shelf, as well as Young Forum (organized by Gazprom VNIIGAZ with the support of Gazprom PJSC), the participants of which not only presented their developments to the professional jury, but also took part in the “Successful company on the Arctic shelf 10 years later” brainstorming.
Over 400 experts representing 236 companies from Russia, the Netherlands, Norway and Finland, as well as the representatives of federal and local authorities participated in the 9 sessions.
EXHIBITION
The exhibition was organized for the third time and again it attracted the attention of professionals in the fields of shipbuilding, Russian sea areas development and development of sea, transport and energy infrastructure of the continental shelf.
The exhibition opening ceremony was attended by Denis Khramov, the First Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, Herman Shirokov, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Committee on Arctic Affairs, Elena Zheltukhina, acting President, Saint Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Igor Muravyev, Executive director, Leningrad Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry Union, management of the leading Russian energy companies (Rosneft, Gazprom, Rosatom) and other officials.
During his speech Mr. Khramov wished fruitful work to all the participants and named St. Petersburg as the shelf capital of Russia, where leading scientific institutes, education institutions and shipbuilding facilities are concentrated.
According to Elena Zheltukhina, St. Petersburg was selected to host the exhibition for a reason: first, shipbuilding industry was historically and still is one of the main industries of the city’s economy – over 40 locally based organizations manufacture over 20% of the machine engineering production of the capital of North, secondly, St. Petersburg undertook the mission of an interlink between the governmental bodies, industrial complex, public and scientific organizations involved in the Arctic zone development.
During the exhibition over 60 companies presented their priority projects, new equipment and technologies for the Arctic hydrocarbon resources development, special purpose vessels, offshore structures, equipment and materials for the construction of sea platforms and technological complexes for the oil and gas offshore exploration and production. The exhibition participants included Lukoil, Gazprom Flot, the Far Eastern Center for Shipbuilding and Shiprepair, Sevmash, Nevsky Shipyard, Shipbuilding cluster of the Arkhangelsk region, Marine Arctic Geological Expedition, Vega, Shipbuilding and Shiprepair, Ruspolymet, Caspian Hydra Technologies company, “Murmanshelf” Association of Arctic Projects Contractors, as well as R&D institutions in the field of shipbuilding and continental shelf development: Afrikantov Experimental Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering, Oceanpribor Central Research Institute, St. Petersburg Mining University, and many others including foreign companies from Germany, Italy, China and Korea. The exhibition was attended by over 5,000 professionals — representatives of science, business, federal and local authorities, developers and designers of equipment and technical systems.
COMPETITIONS RESULTS
Awards ceremony of the International competition of R&D and innovative developments aimed at the development of Arctic and continental shelf organized by the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, was held at the exhibition site.
Vladimir Smirnov, Director of the Department of Civil Service and Mobilization Preparation of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, greeted the laureates of the competition and noticed that the continental shelf, first of all, the Arctic shelf, oil and gas resources development, requires a large amount of scientific research of fundamental and applied nature, state-of-the-art equipment and technologies, while the innovative solutions, modern and prospective developments and technologies presented at the competition show Russia’s intellectual and technical potential to take the lead in the Arctic.
84 works by 82 organizations were presented at the 2018 competition. All of them are aimed at the development of the Russia’s Arctic zone and contribute to the fulfillment of “The Foundations of the State Policy of Russia in the Arctic until 2020 and beyond” decree, approved by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation.
It has become a good tradition to organize the Best Stand Contest in the framework of the OMR exhibition.
This year the first place in the “Best Stand Design” category went to the Far Eastern Center for Shipbuilding and Shiprepair, in the “Best Informative Stand” category – to Lukoil company, People’s Choice Award was presented to the JÄMÄ ENGINEERING company.
OMR 2018 participants believe that the Forum is always characterized by the urgency of the discussed issues, wide participants geography, top-level speakers, large-scale exhibition, as well as, support of the event by federal authorities – Russia’s Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.