Sanctions Threaten Russia’s Next Huge Oil Field

These are boom times for the Russian oil-and-gas industry. High energy prices are keeping the country’s economy afloat and funding the war in Ukraine. How long it lasts will depend in part on a massive Arctic oil project that Russia promised would save the world from an energy crunch.

Vostok Oil, a vast oil patch spread across inhospitable terrain in Russia’s far north, is supposed to produce a premium, easier-to-refine type of crude that would account for as much as 2% of daily global output at the end of the decade. Last month, the head of Rosneft Oil Co., Russia’s state-aligned oil major, compared it to Noah’s Ark because it would save humanity.