The conference "Development of the Arctic and circumpolar regions" is taking place in Yekaterinburg

The scientific and practical conference "Development of the Arctic and circumpolar regions" was opened in Yekaterinburg.

Scientists, industrialists, representatives of the power are discussing practical aspects of fulfillment of the state strategy on development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. As we should remind, the document was taken last year. And this April the government approved the state program "Socioeconomic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation till 2020". The position of the state is the following: the Arctic is the key to providing of national and resource security of Russia, one of sources of competitive advantage on world markets and increase of economic potential of the country. Taking into consideration growing interest of world powers to the Arctic shelf, Russia should restore its positions in international struggle for the leading place in development of this zone, as "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" notes. One fifth of all world reserves of hydrocarbon raw materials are situated in subsoil of the Arctic. By the information of the Ministry for natural resources and ecology of the Russian Federation, reserves of oil, gas, condensate of the arctic continental shelf are evaluated in 83 milliard tons of standard fuel. About 80 percent of them are on the account of the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea (including the Gulf of Ob and the Taz Estuary). All 25 maritime hydrocarbon fields (discovered for the present day in the Arctic zone of Russia) with extractable reserves, which exceed 10 milliard tons of standard fuel, are situated here. Ural Federal Okrug will play the key role in fulfillment of the strategy, and not only because Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug is its basic region on development of oil and gas potential in the Arctic zone of Siberia. Industrially developed regions of Ural Federal Okrug are already ready to take the most active part in practical development of transpolar territories, and the conference is a serious step in this direction. In one row with geopolitical, geo-economical and ecological aspects of development of the Arctic and technologies of development of natural resources, the participants of the scientific forum will discuss issues of development of special information systems, peculiarities of technologies and construction materials being used in northern conditions.