Qualla: Prirazlomnoye Field https://qualla.com/prirazlomnoye-field en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:36 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/v/k/2/c/prirazlomnoye-field-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Prirazlomnoye Field https://qualla.com/prirazlomnoye-field Prirazlomnoye Field: Introduction https://qualla.com/prirazlomnoye-field/ Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name gives it away. Prirazlomnoye means "at the geological fault" in Russian, and the oilfield that bears this name has been a fault line in more ways than one. Discovered in 1989, just two years before the Soviet Union collapsed, this Arctic offshore field in the Pechora Sea south of Novaya Zemlya became the first commercial oil development in Russia's Arctic sector. Its single platform, the Prirazlomnaya, stands alone in waters that freeze for most of the year, extracting oil from beneath the seabed while serving as a flashpoint for one of the fiercest environmental confrontations of the 21st century.

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/k/2/c/prirazlomnoye-field-wp/vk2c-prirazlomnoye-field-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Prirazlomnoye Field: A Platform Stitched from Pieces https://qualla.com/prirazlomnoye-field/ Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Prirazlomnaya platform has a strange pedigree. Its topside was recycled from the decommissioned Hutton tension-leg platform, built in 1984 for Conoco's operations in the North Sea and the first tension-leg platform ever constructed. This secondhand superstructure was married ...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/k/2/c/prirazlomnoye-field-wp/vk2c-prirazlomnoye-field-a-platform-stitched-from-pieces.mp3 0:06 2 full Prirazlomnoye Field: Decades of Delay https://qualla.com/prirazlomnoye-field/ Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 4.0. The gap between discovery and production tells its own story. After the field was found in 1989, a development license went to Rosshelf, a Gazprom subsidiary, in 1993. Operations were supposed to begin by 2001. They did not. In 2000, Gazprom signed a cooperation memorandum with t...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/k/2/c/prirazlomnoye-field-wp/vk2c-prirazlomnoye-field-decades-of-delay.mp3 0:06 3 full Prirazlomnoye Field: The Arctic Sunrise Affair https://qualla.com/prirazlomnoye-field/ Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 4.0. Environmentalists had been sounding alarms about Prirazlomnoye for years before the confrontation that made international headlines. Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund published studies arguing that Gazprom was unprepared to handle an Arctic oil spill, and Russia's own Minist...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/k/2/c/prirazlomnoye-field-wp/vk2c-prirazlomnoye-field-the-arctic-sunrise-affair.mp3 0:06 4 full Prirazlomnoye Field: Ice, Oil, and the Question Ahead https://qualla.com/prirazlomnoye-field/ Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the air, the Prirazlomnaya appears as a tiny geometric interruption in the vastness of the Pechora Sea. In winter, ice presses against its reinforced base. In summer, the sea opens into dark water dotted with ice fragments. Novaya Zemlya's mountainous silhouette rises to the...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/k/2/c/prirazlomnoye-field-wp/vk2c-prirazlomnoye-field-ice-oil-and-the-question-ahead.mp3 0:06 5 full