The paper describes the technology challenges for year-round oil and gas production on 74°N in the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea. The northernmost blocks in the ongoing 23rd licensing round on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) are at 74°N and the physical environment in this area differs from other areas on the NCS where there are oil and gas production today. Firstly the paper briefly describes the physical environment in the Barents Sea, secondly it describes the technology challenges given year-round production. There are identified eleven key technologies which are enabling year-round oil and gas production in the Barents Sea. The technologies are grouped into which technologies that are considered necessary for enabling production, and which can enhance the production in either reducing CAPEX and OPEX or increasing production. All identified technologies have a relatively high technology maturity level. This means that in many cases technologies have already been applied other places in the world (e.g. Canadian Grand Banks) and could be adopted with minor modifications. In some other cases, technologies would have to be further tested at full scale before they could be applied.

Permafrost in Arctic is one of the most important factors when exploration and production of gas and gas condensate fields due to its sensitivity to any technogenic (humane-made) impact or climatic change. Exploration and production procedures in the areas with instable permafrost cause such processes like thermokarst, thermoerosion, flooding, frost heave, surface subsidence, shallow gas blowouts et al. These processes require their forecast and prevention when gas field development designing. However permafrost sometimes is very different in its properties even within area of one production well cluster, so careful study of permafrost behavior is needed before and during gas production. Russian experience of gas field development at complicated permafrost (geocryologic) conditions of Yamal peninsula (Kara Sea shore) is presented.

Offshore fields development is a challenge because of significant risks and uncertainties and presence of several issues. Among them we should highlight first of all: poor knowledge of the reservoir geology and very low reliability of hydrocarbon reserves at the initial stage of field development; limited opportunities for technological solutions on fields development by reason of limited number of "wells cluster"- production units (platforms, subsea units); and necessity to spend 80-90 % CAPEX before start of production. This paper is devoted to solving the problem how to reduce the risks and uncertainties and accelerate offshore fields exploration and development. The methodology to assess the possibility to start offshore fields development by condition of limited geological information is presented. It is implemented as a workflow, the result of which is the conclusion about: types of production units, number of wells and their placement boundaries, required minimum reserves density to begin field development, as well as types of exploration work on fields. The application of the methodology and workflow are demonstrated on the examples of assessment of the potential of development of some Russian Arctic offshore fields.

Abstract The Arctic continental shelf is believed to be the area with the highest unexplored potential for oil and gas as well as to unconventional hydrocarbon resources such as gas hydrates. Despite a common view on plentiful of hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic there are ongoing debates on the potential of this region as a future energy supply base. A driving force for such discussions is multiple: geopolitics, environmental concern, assessment and delineation of Arctic resources, technology available for their successful development and the market demand for energy supply. Russian slice is recognized to be the largest among oil and gas resources owned by Arctic nations. However, scarce information and available geological data create uncertainty regarding a future role of Russian Arctic as main base of energy supply in the second part of the XXI century. A further uncertainty is the pace at which production from northern areas including arctic offshore, will be brought onstream - either because of national policy, infrastructure development or investment by the state and the oil companies. These areas embrace those where development have already been started (Offshore Sakhalin, northern Timan Pechora and Northern Caspian) and those awaiting future involvement, like Barents and Pechora seas, East Siberia, Yamal, Kara Sea and Kamchatka. Offhore production levels are likely to be very important to Russia in mid and long terms, especially as most (if not all) of production will go for export and, in the process, open doors to new markets. In this way offshore production will introduce a new and very significant component to Russia's export strategy. However, active involvement of the Russian Arctic resources in the global energy supply process needs a detailed analysis and clear understanding of the market potential for the Russian gas and oil (required volumes, time frame, transportations routes) and requires close attention of the government to the most important issues that should be in place, like national standards and guidelines for Arctic resources development, stable, transparent and predictable law as a necessary precondition for massive investments in exploration and production and, not least, active involvement of foreign companies into development of the Arctic resources that could bring along with investments an indispensible competence and experience, available technology and HSE principles. Development of oil and gas field in the arctic seas located few hundreds miles from shoreline is according to experts' opinion the most challenging project in the world. Without international cooperation, coordination of all activities and use of modern and proven technologies for production of hydrocarbons, their transport, efficient safety and environmental protection tools realization of such project would be questionable. Introduction Russian continental shelf constitutes 22% of the World Ocean shelf and amounts to 6.2 million km2 (among them 4.2 million km2 within the economic zone). Arctic Ocean accumulates more than 50% of sediments coming to the World Ocean, which explain intensive sedimentation processes in this region. It explains high potential of the Arctic shelf in general and the Russian Arctic shelf, in particular.