MOSCOW. Jan 22 (Interfax-AVN) - The conversion potential of the Russian defense industry is recommended to be more actively engaged in the development of continental shelf oil and gas fields, a competent source in the State Duma lower house of parliament told Interfax-Military News Agency Wednesday.
He said that a recommendation like this was included in the resulting documents of Tuesday's Duma hearings held on the initiative of the industry, construction, and knowledge-intensive technologies committee.
The hearings were dedicated to the legal problems of profit- sharing agreements signed in the course of continental shelf development, and to the use of the conversion potential of the Russian defense industry.
The hearings read that the depletion of land-based oil and gas fields had increased the fraction of sea oil production up to 35 percent. In the near future, Russia might make the shelf of its Northern and Far Eastern seas holding about a quarter of the world's resources the main source of hydrocarbons. To develop the areas, Russia needs special equipment, including ice-protected drilling platforms and specialized vessels. That is where the potential of nuclear submarine producers may profoundly help.
In particular, the Sevrodvinsk-based Sevmashpredpriyatiye shipyard has started the first Russian-made ice-protected drilling platform. In the Far East, the Amur shipyard upgrades the Orlan platform for the Sakhalin-1 project. This is the second large order that the Amur shipyard has received. Several years ago they did the same to Molikpak, another platform.
Speakers in the hearings also said that the potentials of the Russian defense industry could have been implemented much better if the 70-percent quota in profit-sharing agreements, legislatively fixed for Russian enterprises participating in deposit development, had been fully observed. In practice, however, foreign partners neglect it as a rule.