Long-term forecasts of the oil and gas Arctic shelf development: the existing methodical approaches and assessment of a possibility of their application

Abstract

The problem of the development of offshore oil and gas Arctic projects has risen recently due to the depletion of traditional overland oil and gas fields, as well as the discovery of significant hydrocarbon reserves in the Arctic seas and the strategic importance of the development of that zone for the Russian Federation. The decision-making process associated with the development of these projects takes place in high level of uncertainty of external environment. Consequently, existing tools and methods of forecasting the prospects of the projects are hardly applicable due to its specificity. This article presents a special approach for assessing the prospects of oil and gas offshore Arctic projects. It consists of a theoretical base, which is the newly developed TESCIMP-methodology, practical tools for implementing it, as well as a complex approach for the assessment. The research is segmented into four stages: the analysis of the factors influencing project’s prospects as well as the key pros and cons for developing it, a two-dimensional classification of specific indicators which allocates essential and stimulating ones and forecasting the prospects of the project, identification of projects’ levels which implies the selection of appropriate TESCIMP-factors. The indicators within those factors underlie practical tools of checklist and expert surveys that help evaluate the projects’ prospects. The last stage proposes a complex approach for a further assessment, which consists of three steps and based on the combination of expert surveys and statistical methods.