CHARACTERISTICS OF HYDROCARBON EXPLOITATION IN ARCTIC CIRCLE

• Main Authors: Vanja Lež, Daria Karasalihović Sedlar
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Croatian
• Published: University of Zagreb 2013
• Subjects: Arctic Circle; gas potential; gas deposits; Mining engineering. Metallurgy; TN1-997; Geology; QE1-996.5; Arctic; Greenland; Snøhvit
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/0e4d4d13e62843ed8c90c1ba8a152a1d

The existence of large quantities of hydrocarbons is supposed within the Arctic Circle. Assumed quantities are 25% of the total undiscovered hydrocarbon reserves on Earth, mostly natural gas. Over 500 major and minor gas accumulations within the Arctic Circle were discovered so far, but apart from Snøhvit gas field, there is no commercial exploitation of natural gas from these fields. Arctic gas projects are complicated, technically hard to accomplish, and pose a great threat to the return of investment, safety of people and equipment and for the ecosystem. Russia is a country that is closest to the realization of the Arctic gas projects that are based on the giant gas fields. The most extreme weather conditions in the seas around Greenland are the reason why this Arctic region is the least explored and furthest from the realization of any gas project (the paper is published in Croatian ).