Gazprom Neft ships the first "Arctic Oil" from Prirazlomnoye, site of the Arctic Sunrise protest last fall

GCaptain and others report that on Friday, April 18, Gazprom Neft shipped the  first 70,000 metric tons of "Arctic Oil" from its Prirazlomnoye platform. Platts reports that the Prirazlomonoye field,  some 60 km offshore the Pechora Sea, "is expected to reach its peak output of some 6 million mt/yer, or 120,000 b/d, by 2020."

According to Reuters, President Putin, speaking by video to workers on the platform, stated:  "This, in essence, is the beginning of great and large-scale extraction of minerals and oil by our country in the Arctic." 

Russian environmental groups, among others, have expressed concern about Russia's ability to operate the remote platform safely. The Greenpeace protest there last fall led to the crew's detention, its vessel's impounding and the Netherlands request for provisional measures from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). On November 22, 2013, ITLOS ordered the release of the Arctic Sunrise and the detained persons upon the posting of a bond. Russia did not appear at the hearing, having rejected the tribunal's jurisdiction. For more on the jurisdictional aspects of the case see this ASIL Insights posting. The crew have all been released; Greenpeace filed a formal petition for the vessel's release on March 3, 2014.

1) U.S. Think tanks weigh in on Arctic Oil and Gas Development 2) Fourth Anniversary of Deepwater Horizon: Arctic Lessons

Three recent publications from Washington DC/New York think tanks in late March all address Arctic security and resource development from a U.S. perspective:

The Brookings Institution
Policy Brief | March 24, 2014
Offshore Oil and Gas Governance in the Arctic: A Leadership Role for the U.S.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2014/03/offshore-oil-gas-governance-arctic

The Center for a New American Security
Policy Brief | March 25, 2014
Emerging Arctic Security Challenges
http://www.cnas.org/Emerging-Arctic-Security-Challenges#.Uzq2Wce-iTY

The Council on Foreign Relations
CFR "InfoGuide" | March 25, 2014
The Emerging Arctic
http://www.cfr.org/polar-regions/emerging-arctic/p32620#!/?cid=otr_marketing_use-arctic_Infoguide#!

Also, on April 20th the Fourth Anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon is upon us, and at least two U.S. institutions are marking it by drawing lessons learned for Arctic drilling:

April 17 Resources for the Future: http://www.rff.org/Events/Pages/From-the-Gulf-to-the-Arctic-What-Have-We-Learned-Since-the-Deepwater-Horizon-Spill.aspx

UPDATE 5/7/2014: For a report on the Resources for the Future event see the story in Oil and Gas Journal: http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-112/issue-4c/general-interest/four-years-after-macondo-offshore-arctic-beckons-speakers-warn.html, with reporting as well on an April 21 conference sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Council 

April 25  Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment/Duke Energy Initiative - https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/loribennear/arctic-access-workshop-2014/

Notably, the federal regulator responsible for offshore oil and gas development on the U.S. outer continental shelf in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas is expected to issue ARCTIC SPECIFIC regulations soon.  The rule-making was announced last year: U.S. Dep’t of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) and Bureau of Safety and Environment and Enforcement (BSEE) Review of Alaska Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Drilling Standards, REGULATIONS.GOV (June 6, 2013), http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=BOEM-2013-0035 .  I will write again when the regulations are promulgated.

In this connection see the Pew Environment site
1) for its excellent paper that has helped inform the expected Arctic-specific U.S. offshore regulations (an early version was submitted during the public comment period) http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/reports/arctic-standards-recommendations-on-oil-spill-prevention-response-and-safety-85899506213
 and
2) for a blog entry also marking the Fourth Anniversary of the DWH  http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/other-resources/the-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-four-years-later-85899543841

This United States-specific blogpost concludes with a long overdue reference to a December 2013 White Paper by Professor Wendy Jacobs and her students at Harvard's Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic on "Suggested Indicators of Environmentally Responsible Performance of Offshore Oil and Gas Companies Proposing to Drill in the U.S. Arctic," available here: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/environmentallawprogram/clinic-report-identifies-environmental-performance-indicators-for-companies-proposing-to-drill-in-the-u-s-arctic/