The biggest national deposit of natural gas "Bova-nenkovskoye" was put into commission on Yamal peninsula late in 2012. This important stage in the region's development, recognized in the world as "Russia's arctic facade, became possible, first of all, due to the efforts of scientists conducted for many years. Representatives of the RAS Siberian Branch were invited to the celebrations dedicated to the event.

On returning to Novosibirsk, RAS Vice-President, chairman of the RAS SB, Academician Alexander Ase-ev, his deputy, director of the Institute of Oil-and-Gas Geology and Geophysics named after A. Trofimuk, RAS SB, Academician Mikhail Epon and chairman of the presidium of Kemerovo Scientific Center, RAS SB, Academician Alexei Kontorovich carried out a press-conference, where they announced their plans to organize a new multiprofile research center in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area under support of OAO "Gazprom". Yuri Plotnikov, a correspondent of Science in Siberia newspaper, told us about tasks, national scientists are facing, concerning the necessity to form a theoretical bases for further exit of our country to Arctic regions.

There already exists in Nadym an outpost of academic science-a branch of the Institute of Oil-and-Gas Geology and Geophysics. But according to his supervisor of studies Academician Kontorovich, today there is no arctic region in the world, whose contribution into the global economic potential could be comparable with Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area, and so studies must go on. It is true that Yamal development will not be limited by only its western part, where Bovanenkovskoye deposit is now functioning-in the north-eastern part in the village of Sabetta there has been begun construction of a big deep-water port. After laying railways there will be created an enormous transport and logistic junction. And then coal

Press-conference at the RAS SB presidium on the results of the visit of scientists to Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area in connection with ceremonial commissioning of Bovanenkovskoye oil-and-gas-condensate deposit.

from Kuzbass, oil from Khanty-Mansi Autonomous area, grain from the south of Western Siberia will get to world markets by the shortest way through the Northern Shipping Route. According to specialists, in future the Ob river might be also used as such transport artery.

Today the Bovanenkovskoye deposit with its rated capacity, making up 20 percent of all output of "blue fuel" of our country, has practically not a single imported nail: many leading industrial regions of Russia fully provide it with necessary materials. Turbines come from Perm, pipes from the Ural Plant of Heavy Mechanical Engineering, automatic instruments from St. Petersburg and Moscow. The gas pipeline, designed for 120 atm pressure, was launched at Yamal for the first time in the world in the conditions of the North. And all this are achievements of national technologies. The participants of the press-conference spoke about difficulties on the road to success: the first visit to Bovanenkovo took place in late 1980s-early 1990s, then efforts were made in early 2000s, and the project of many years was completed during the "third coming" of gasmen in 2006-2012.

However, scientists began preparation for development of biggest gascondensate deposits with reserves of around 4.9 trl m³ much earlier-it is not accidental that the site is named in honor of Vadim Bovanenko, a geophysicist, who worked there from 1957. Under his supervision specialists determined sites, where consequently were opened Urengoiskoye, Medvezhye, and Yamburgskoye deposits. In the years of Great Patriotic War, research in the north of Western Siberia and lower reaches of the Yenisei was carried out by an outstanding geologist, future corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Vladimir Saks, In his field diaries of 1945 one can read: prospecting must be carried out in the lower reaches of Pura and Taza rivers-it was there that 15-20 years later natural reserves of "blue fuel" were discovered.

Geological structure of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area in the post-war period remained completely unknown. Therefore, the USSR Council of Ministers charged the West-Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences and Mining-and-Geological Institute to study this region. Geological surveying was preceded by the theoretical work of many years, and then a big-expedition headed by Stanislav Shatsky was organized in Tomsk. On the basis of the maps, compiled by these specialists, the USSR began development of the north of

Western Siberia; these materials collected and generalized in Novosibirsk and Tomsk, served as a base for consequent projects and engineering solutions.

The first Lenin Prize winners, awarded for scientific substantiation of oil-and-gas-bearing capacity of Western Siberia, Novosibirsk scientists Nikolai Rostovtsev and Vladimir Kazarinov, Drs. Sc. (Geol. & Mineral.), predicted long before first findings that there would be found gigantic gas deposits in rather young sediments. Their prediction served as a basis for planning works and was completely justified.

Later on, in the 1990s the specialists from the Institute of Oil-and-Gas Geology and Geophysics, as well as students of the Novosibirsk State University in the course of 5 field seasons literally saved hundreds of meters of a core, containing an invaluable geological information and left by it in abandoned villages of prospecting parties. Henceforth the preserved samples were carefully studied at the laboratories of the above-mentioned Institute.

In other words, the cooperation of academic institutions and prospecting organizations on Yamal has long traditions. The Institute of Geology of Oil and Gas and the Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production, RAS SB, prepared a development strategy for Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area. RAS SB specialists assessed perspectives of oil-and-gas-bearing capacity of the north of Western Siberia (including Kara Sea). A natural result of this activity will become a work on establishing the above-mentioned scientific center of RAS SB, which was begun on the initiative of Gazprom and the government of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area.

Its subdivisions are planned to accommodate in 3 cities with the main base in Nadym, where research will be carried out, connected mainly with development and exploitation of big gas deposits. In addition, the work of the new center will include a medico-biological direction for studies of problems related to living conditions of indigenous population and newcomers. Research of humanitarian nature will be unfolded in Salekhard, including problems of small peoples of the North, ethnology, archeology and also social-economic issues. Finally, in distant future it is intended to organize a block of gas- and oil-chemistry in Novi Urengoi, where new technologies of hydrocarbon processing will be introduced.

According to Academician Epov, in order to solve all these tasks it is required to mobilize the scientists and also young people striving to make an interesting career in the Arctic and take part in great affairs of the state significance. RAS Siberian and Ural branches will be in charge of personnel issues. "I think that the Siberian Branch is a kind of plenipotentiary of the Siberian Federal Area on Yamal and it will inevitably be followed by Novosibirsk enterprises and biggest higher education establishments. And if we organize such interaction and all this with such water artery as the Ob river, the creation of Yamal Scientific Center, RAS SB, will become a cause of not only academic science, but by far greater member of interested people-not only top officials, but ordinary citizens,"-he said.

Speaking about development of the riches of the Arctic, Academician Kontorovich pointed out: "We are often asked, how long will our gas last, perhaps we are extracting it too intensively? My answer is: even today, when such giants as Urengoiskoye, Medvezhye, Yam-burgskoye deposits are decreasing their output, we are the first country in the world by gas reserves... Prospecting works must be carried out in the region, and then new discoveries will be ahead?

Yu. Plotnikov, "The Arctic-In Earnest and For a Long Time", "Science in Siberia" newspaper, No. 43, 2012

Illustrations from the site of the newspaper "Science in Siberia" and the archives of "Science in Russia" magazine

Prepared by Yevgeniya SIDOROVA