Promises, Promises: The Unbuilt Petroleum Environment in Murmansk

• Author: Elana Wilson Rowe
• Pages: 91-104

Promises, Promises: The Unbuilt

Petroleum Environment in Murmansk

Elana Wilson Rowe*

Senior Research Fellow/Head of Research Group on Emerging Powers and Global

Development, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway

Abstract

The Arctic as a booming oil and gas province has been a predominant geopolitical representation of

the region. However, the shale gas revolution in the United States and the drop in oil prices since late

2014 has reduced the viability of many high-cost Arctic oil and gas prospects. Little scholarly attention

has been paid to the consequences of pursued but unrealized natural resource-based projects. This

article brings literature from geography and science and technology studies into conversation to map

out a preliminary research agenda for understanding how these ‘‘shelved futures’’ are still likely to

matter in Arctic communities and policymaking. This conceptual argument is bolstered with a short

exploratory case study of Murmansk, Russia. The qualitative-interview based case study illustrates

two ways in which the Shtokman gas project retained regional significance, even three years after the

project was suspended. Specifically, these are 1) a comparatively negative assessment of the broader

socio-economic prospects of the region, and 2) expanded and possibly changed understandings on

the part of the different stakeholders (business, government, civil society/the public) about their own

and others’ potential roles. The semi-structured interviews with stakeholders pr imarily focused on

recollections of petroleum companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, as these efforts

were a concrete harbinger of the much-trumpeted oil and gas future.

Keywords: politics of anticipation;Arctic economic development;Russia;Kola Peninsula;

Shtokman;science and technology studies;corporate social responsibility

Responsible Editor: Øyvind Ravna, UiT- The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø,

Norway.

Received: July 2016; Accepted: December 2016; Published: January 2017

The oil and gas sector in our region is something we have...and don’t have. This sector’s

presence among us is somehow virtual. Nonetheless, Shtokman managed to influence our

quality of life for the better and for the worse at the same time.

Resident and businessman, Murmansk, Russia

Introduction

The notion of the Arctic as a booming oil and gas province has become one of the

strongest elite/policy representations of the region. A key number cited extensively

*Correspondence to: Elana Wilson Rowe, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, P.O. Box 8159,

0033 Oslo, Norway. Email: ew@nupi.no

Arctic Review on Law and Politics

Vol. 8, 2017, pp. 316

#2017. E.W. Rowe. This is an Open Access article distributedunder the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial4.0 InternationalLicense (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/),allowingthird parties to copy

andredistribute the materialin any medium or format and to remix,transform, and build uponthe material for any purpose,

even commercially, providedthe original work is properly citedand states its license.

Citation: E.W. Rowe. ‘‘Promises, promises: The unbuilt petroleum environment in Murmansk.’’ Arctic Review on Law and

Politics, Vol. 8, 2017, pp. 316. http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v8.504

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