On behalf of      NSRA    Council, we are preparing a conference on November 09, 2021 of NSR  Association. The main topic of the conference will be the development of oil and gas projects in the Russian Arctic and on the NSR highway. The conference is planned to be attended by PJSC Novatek (Yamal-LNG), PJSC LUKOIL (Varandey oil terminal , Prirazlomnaya rig), Rosneft (Vostok-oil province, Taimyr region) Gazprom Shelf (Yamal LNG project), French Total, (Yamal LNG) .

Possibly my  old friends from joint studies at 8 weeks PETROD petroleum management and policy courses in Stavanger would join us within NSRA online conference. The same as  from American company Conoco Philips  and  Norwegian company Statoil, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2022. The anniversaries of the Northern Sea Route and Statoil coincide, and we hope for joint events. I would repeat myself again the words to be said by   ex boss of Institute of the North Anchorage, Alaska at the Arctic  conference in my native Archangelsk in 2017 : “ Arctic is not Ukraine”. Who is disagree with that please let us know within updated NSRA conference on November, 9, 2021.

The topic of Statoil company  presentation could be: "The results of seismic research in the former "disputed territories" in the Arctic in 2011-2019".  Just would like to remind you that disputed area story have been lasted since USSR times in 1922 up to 2010 when president Dmitry Medvedev and prime-minister Jens Stoltenberg have signed agreement in Murmansk  about this. We are expecting a presentation at our conference to be done by the owner of unique Arctic drilling technologies  Aker solutions from Norway.

Canadian Petro Canada or its representative  is planning  to speak online on the topic: "Construction of the Keystone trans trunk pipeline in the Arctic from Canada to the USA: solutions and challenges"

There are many controversial issues here, including the history of approval by the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Alberta, as well as approvals by first nations of the route of this trans trunk pipeline. The construction of this mega-project was delayed for many years.  These are also our old contacts from our work at PJSC LUKOIL, when together with Canadians we studied the mechanism of application of PSA,  the present tax legislation studies  in the federal states of the world.

Mikhail Grigoriev and Vasily Bogoyavlensky will present the Arctic oil and gas topic at NSRA  conference.

We hope to hear a discussion between these leading Russian experts and foreign experts on the development of the new province of Vostok Oil, in Yamal, Sakha-Yakutia, as well as energy projects in Norway, Canada, and the USA.

NSRA is quite sure  that decarbonization, as well as work with the problems of climate change, is inevitable. But Russia does not seek to run ahead of the locomotive, overtaking technological progress. We see what happened with  gas prices in EU this autumn. Who needs such a sky prices in Europe that made ordinary people to pay the price for political games and tenses.

 Let's all work together not to be like teenagers in energy behavior, trying to freeze their ears to spite their parents. Therefore, the topic of the development of energy projects in the Russian Arctic remains important for NSRA. At least until 2060, as Russia clearly stated at the Glasgow conference on climate change with the participation of 120 countries, which opened on November 1, 2021. 

We are waiting for reports on the development of Arctic aviation in rescue operations on the NSR highway from the Naryan-Mar Joint Air Squadron (Valery Ostapchuk), the Russian Maritime Rescue Service (Viktor Chernov), the Administration of the Northern Sea Route (Nikolai Monko), representatives of RAIPON  of Taimyr, Sakha-Yakutia, NAO (Yuri Khatanzeysky), the port of the Dudinka NSR, representatives of the border department for the Western Arctic region (Major General Stanislav Maslov) and the Customs service from  the Russian Arctic division, the Japanese company MOL (Yamal-LNG) PJSC Sovcomflot, representatives of the Big Arctic 8 Embassies of Iceland, USA, Canada, Norway, Finland. With the help of the Federation Council, the Finnish Consulate General of Finland in St. Petersburg, the Governor of the NAO Yuri Bezdudnyi, the association of Yasavei and Yuri Khatanzeysky, the company "Smart Arctic" and Vitaly Bachukin, the partner of NSRA, we hope to move the Russian-Finnish project on reindeer husbandry and increasing the export of reindeer meet   to Finland, Norway, Sweden and other EU countries.

Invitations to the conference to NSRA observers and the territories of the Russian Arctic were sent online to the heads of the regions to the Heads of the Komi Republic (governor Vladimir Uiba, ), Karelia (governor Artur Parfenchikov), Magadan Region (governor Sergey Nosov, MD) and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (governor Natalia Komarova) 

 The work on invitations, the program is moving towards completion and will be sent to all participants in the near future by November 07.

On behalf of  NSRA Council and  NSRA President, President of Russia envoy on the international cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic  Arthur Chilingarov -

Vladimir Kharlov, NSRA  vice -president,

member of the working group on the Russian Arctic at Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation