Russia's oil major Rosneft and British oil giant British Petroleum agreed to form a joint center on Arctic Technologies in Russia's second largest city of St. Petersburg, a Russian deputy premier said.
"The exploration of the [Arctic] shelf will be definitely conducted in line with all norms of the environment protection," Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said.
He added that the center would be working jointly with leading Russian and foreign research institutes.
Rosneft and BP agreed on Friday on joint shelf projects in Russia and other states.
Currently, Rosneft and BP jointly develop the Sakhalin shelf in Russia's Far East.
In 2006, the companies signed a memorandum to develop the Arctic shelf. However, they have not developed any projects there.
Russian experts estimate recoverable oil and gas resources on the continental shelf at 100 billion tons of reference fuel.
Russia is first in the world in natural gas reserves (24 percent of the total) and 7th in oil reserves (6 percent), but these resources are not renewable.
LONDON, January 15 (RIA Novosti)
