Natural Gas Development in the Russian Far East 1

The poorly explored and mostly undeveloped gas resources of the Russian Far East (RFE) are large enough to support several large-scale projects, with an aggregate exportable surplus of up to 30 bcm of natural gas a year. However, owing to the uncertainties of the regional and national investment climate, new development projects, which heavily rely upon invited foreign participation, are likely to be delayed and will hardly yield, by the year 2000, more than 10 bcm of Russian gas for export. Nevertheless, in the foreseeable future the region will surely emerge as an important player in the Asia-Pacific energy market and, consequently, in this area's geopolitical arena as well.