President Vladimir Putin
has suddenly become
concerned about
permafrost melting.
But he also wants
Russian oil and
gas companies
to keep pumping
the fossil fuels
that are allegedly
warming the planet,
and making
the permafrost
melt !
Maybe this explains why
Russia sudden ratified
the Paris climate accord ?
Global warming had been seen
as good news for relatively
cold Russia.
Warming waters were opening up
the Northern Sea Route across
the top of the country, making
it possible to search for oil and gas
beneath the Arctic seas.
The frozen landmass of northern
Russia, is the heartland of Russian
oil and gas production.
The Ocean and Cryosphere
in a Changing Climate report
adopted by the IPCC recently,
says warming threatens the
“structural stability and
functional capacities”
of oil industry infrastructure.
The greatest risks
occur in areas with
high ground-ice content
and frost-susceptible
sediments.
Russia’s Yamal Peninsula,
home to two of Russia’s
biggest new gas projects
(Bovanenkovo and Yamal LNG)
and the Novy Port oil development,
fits that description.
“45% of the oil and natural gas
production fields in the Russian
Arctic are located in the
highest hazard zone,”
according to the IPCC report.
The top few meters of permafrost
freezes and thaws as the seasons
change, becoming unstable
during warmer months.
Foundations must be deep enough
to support roads, railways, houses,
processing plants and pipelines.
Warming means the ground
loses its ability to support
the things built on it.
Foundations in the permafrost regions
can no longer bear the loads they did
in the 1980s, according to a 2017 report
by the Arctic Council’s Arctic
Monitoring and Assessment Program:
( AMAP )
( AMAP )
For the area that includes Urengoy,
(the world’s second-largest
natural gas field) and much of
Russia’s older West Siberian
gas production, the soil could
eventually lose 50-75% of its
bearing capacity.
Russia’s newest
oil infrastructure
is different --
it was designed
with climate
change in mind.
The processing trains
and storage tanks
at Yamal LNG sit on
65,000 piles driven
up to 28 meters deep
into the permafrost.
They are kept cold by a
“thermosyphon system”.
“Near-surface permafrost
in the High Arctic and
other very cold areas
has warmed by
more than +0.5°C
since 2007–2009"
according to the AMAP.
Gas production at the
Bovanenkovo field,
on the Yamal Peninsula,
is expected to reach
140 billion cubic meters
a year — more than
Norway's entire production,
— but it “has seen a recent
increase in landslides related
to thawing permafrost,”
says the AMAP.