RusEnergy

NIIGATA (Japan), March 9 (RIA Novosti's Andrei Fesyun) -- There is a very promising forecast for ever wider minerals discoveries in Sakhalin. This conclusion has been made after the statement at the 2005 Russian-Japanese economic forum in Niigata, which opened Tuesday, by Yury Shchukin, director of the Sakhalin research and design oil and gas institute. He estimated the predicted hydrocarbon extraction at 1,900 million tons of oil and 3,300,000 million cubic meters of gas. At the same time, he indicated that prospects for the growth of oil resources in the Sakhalin region exceed the prospected part by several times and are connected chiefly with North Sakhalin's shelf. The parameters of some promising structures explored by seismic prospecting in the recent years enable the inference that the most spectacular discoveries in the Sakhalin shelf are still in the future: there are definite chances to discover unique oil deposits with the stock of some 300 million tons of oil and one trillion cubic meters of gas, according to Shchukin. The results reached and forecast speak of the feasibility of establishing a powerful oil and gas complex in inland and off-shore Sakhalin by the mid 2020s. Shchukin also reported about an annual quota of 50-60 million tons of oil and 65-85 billion cubic meters of gas to be extracted there. "These levels meet both the internal needs of the Far Eastern region of Russia and import requirements of neighboring countries," said Shchukin. The greatest hopes are pinned on the projects Sakhalin-3 and Sakhalin-5 which potentially surpass Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2, said the Russian scientist.