Aleksei Kishankov
Senior Researcher
Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russia
Aleksei Kishankov is a senior researcher at the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His specialty is petroleum geology. Particularly, Aleksei is studying geological structure, petroleum potential, distribution of shallow gas, as well as gas hydrates and permafrost, for the Arctic offshore areas. He is mainly involved in geological interpretation of seismic data, he also participates in marine expeditions. Aleksei has multiple publications of his studies.
Participates in
TECHNICAL PROGRAMME | Primary Energy Supply
Advances in Geoscience
Forum 05 | Hall 5 Digital Poster Plaza 1
15
October
10:00
12:00
UTC+3
The Circumarctic megaregion (the Arctic Ocean and adjacent land) contains gigantic hydrocarbon (HC) resources, most of which have not yet been sufficiently studied. The largest HC resources are predicted in the Russian Arctic. In 1969-2024, total HC production in the Arctic reached 25.7 Gtoe, with Russian share being 87.8%. Over 30 Mt have been produced in the Pechora Sea at the first in the Arctic offshore ice-resistant fixed platform Prirazlomnaya. In the Russian Arctic, the main volumes of HCs are produced in the north of the West Siberian megabasin, where 241 fields have been discovered (land and the Kara Sea shelf) with the initial recoverable HC reserves about 75 Gtoe (88.7% - gas).
Exploration and production of HCs in the Arctic are complicated by many natural and climatic features, including the presence of heterogeneous permafrost and associated gas hydrates, high gas saturation of the upper part of the sedimentary cover, leading to intensive (explosive) degassing of the Earth. The authors conducted a wide range of geological and geophysical studies of these features and obtained fundamentally new results.
The gas-dynamic genesis of the formation of giant craters in the Arctic was substantiated, assuming the occurrence of gas-saturated cavities in massive ground ice. Based on data of remote sensing (RS), more than 8000 zones of explosive degassing with the formation of craters/pockmarks were revealed on the shallow bottom of thermokarst lakes and rivers of the Arctic region of Western Siberia, and adjacent coastal parts of the Kara Sea, also, for the first time, large mud volcanic structures with craters were discovered on the bottom of the Arctic lakes. The causes and consequences of catastrophic man-made gas blowouts, occurring during exploration well drilling in the Arctic, have been studied.
Based on seismic data, obtained by refraction wave method, in a volume of about 43 thousand km, mapping of frozen and thawed ground distribution on the shallow (up to 120 m) shelf of the seas of Western and Eastern Siberia (about 0.6 and 1.3 million sq. km) was conducted. For the first time, it was established that on most part of the East Siberian shelf (about 58%), ice-bonded permafrost had degraded, which also reduced the area of possible existence of gas hydrates. Particularly, frozen ground had degraded to the greatest extent (about 77%) on the shelf of the East Siberian Sea. In the Kara Sea, sparse patchy frozen ground had mainly been preserved. The validity of the results is confirmed by drilling data.
The research results have great significance for increasing the efficiency and environmental safety of HC resource exploration and production, as well as for forecasting of climate change.
Exploration and production of HCs in the Arctic are complicated by many natural and climatic features, including the presence of heterogeneous permafrost and associated gas hydrates, high gas saturation of the upper part of the sedimentary cover, leading to intensive (explosive) degassing of the Earth. The authors conducted a wide range of geological and geophysical studies of these features and obtained fundamentally new results.
The gas-dynamic genesis of the formation of giant craters in the Arctic was substantiated, assuming the occurrence of gas-saturated cavities in massive ground ice. Based on data of remote sensing (RS), more than 8000 zones of explosive degassing with the formation of craters/pockmarks were revealed on the shallow bottom of thermokarst lakes and rivers of the Arctic region of Western Siberia, and adjacent coastal parts of the Kara Sea, also, for the first time, large mud volcanic structures with craters were discovered on the bottom of the Arctic lakes. The causes and consequences of catastrophic man-made gas blowouts, occurring during exploration well drilling in the Arctic, have been studied.
Based on seismic data, obtained by refraction wave method, in a volume of about 43 thousand km, mapping of frozen and thawed ground distribution on the shallow (up to 120 m) shelf of the seas of Western and Eastern Siberia (about 0.6 and 1.3 million sq. km) was conducted. For the first time, it was established that on most part of the East Siberian shelf (about 58%), ice-bonded permafrost had degraded, which also reduced the area of possible existence of gas hydrates. Particularly, frozen ground had degraded to the greatest extent (about 77%) on the shelf of the East Siberian Sea. In the Kara Sea, sparse patchy frozen ground had mainly been preserved. The validity of the results is confirmed by drilling data.
The research results have great significance for increasing the efficiency and environmental safety of HC resource exploration and production, as well as for forecasting of climate change.
