Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal

ISSN: 1461-5517 (Print) 1471-5465 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tiap20

The environmental impact assessment process

for oil and gas extraction projects in the Russian
Federation: possibilities for improvement

Svetlana Solodyankina & Johann Koeppel

To cite this article: Svetlana Solodyankina & Johann Koeppel (2009) The environmental
impact assessment process for oil and gas extraction projects in the Russian Federation:
possibilities for improvement, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 27:1, 77-83, DOI:
10.3152/146155109X430344

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.3152/146155109X430344

Published online: 20 Feb 2012.

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 Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 27(1), March 2009, pages 77–83
DOI: 10.3152/146155109X430344; http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/beech/iapa

Practice report

The environmental impact assessment process

for oil and gas extraction projects in the Russian Federation:
possibilities for improvement

Svetlana Solodyankina and Johann Koeppel

This paper considers how the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process in Russia (OVOS) could
benefit from incorporating some of the process and documentary features of European strategic
environmental assessment (SEA) and US Environmental Impact Statements respectively. While the
strategic level is addressed in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA, the USA system of
Environmental Assessment) and in the European Directive on SEA implemented in 2004, SEA is not
currently undertaken in the Russian system in terms of legislation or practice. The first section of the
paper describes the present state of the OVOS process, through presentation of the relevant legislation
in Russia, taking into account European Union (EIA and SEA Directives) and US (Policy Act EIS/EA)
experiences. In the second section, the Irkutsk case study (an OVOS report for the gas exploration and
extraction project in the Irkutsk Region of Russia) is compared with the EIA undertaken for the Cook
Inlet oil and gas lease sales in Alaska (planned activities under the considered projects are quite
similar) to show differences between the two documents. In the third section the current situation with
Irkutsk case study is presented and an example of how SEA tools could be integrated in the report is
provided.

Keywords: environmental impact statements, ecological expertise, environmental impact assessment

I N RUSSIA, THE PROCESS of ecological ex-

pertise (EE) and assessment of environmental
impacts (EIA; Russian abbreviation OVOS) of a
project is applied to all developments; undertaking
EE and OVOS is required by Russian legislation.
The Law of the Russian Federation ‘On Ecological
Expertise’ of 1995 defines EE as:
assessment of the compliance of the planned
economic and other activities with the ecological
Svetlana Solodyankina is at the Sochava Institute of Geography,
Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Science, Ulan-
Batorskaya Street, 1, Irkutsk, 664033 Russia; Email: sveta@
irigs.irk.ru; Tel: +7 (3952) 426795. Johann Koeppel is at the
Technische Universität Berlin, Fakultät VI, Institut für Land-
schaftsarchitektur und Umweltplanung, Sekretariat EB 5, Straße
des 17. Juni 145, D-10623 Berlin, Germany; Email: koeppel@
ile.tu-berlin.de; Tel: 49 (030) 314-22344.
requirements and evaluation of feasibility of
implementation of the activity subject to Eco-
logical Expertise, in order to prevent possible
adverse environmental, as well as related
social, economic and other, impacts of this
activity.
EE of projects includes three components:
1. OVOS, or assessment of impacts on the environ-
ment;
2. Public and state ecological expertise; and
3. Ecological substantiation and ecological audit
(see more on the EIA process in Cherp, 2000,
2001; Cherp and Golubeva, 2004).
The OVOS Regulations for the year 2000 define
OVOS as:

Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2009 1461-5517/09/0100077-07 US$08.00 © IAIA 2009 77
The EIA process in Russia
a process encouraging an ecologically informed
administrative decision on implementation of
economic and other activities through identifi-
cation of possible adverse impacts, assessment
of ecological impacts, taking into account
public opinions, and developing measures to
mitigate and prevent negative impacts.
OVOS is designed for project-level developments.
Comparison of the two concepts shows their basic
difference: EE is a check of results of research
and forecasts, while OVOS of planned economic
and other activities is the process of ensuring the
acceptance of ecologically focused administrative
decisions on the implementation of planned eco-
nomic and other activities. This takes place through
identification of possible adverse impacts, evalua-
tion of ecological consequences, taking public opin-
ion into account, and development of measures for
mitigation and prevention of impacts. The results of
OVOS are part of the documentation presented for
the state EE of both the project and its OVOS by an
independent expert commission, which is appointed
by the federal and regional environmental bodies.
This system in the Russian Federation requires
further development, as it cannot cope with the in-
creasing levels of urbanization and economic stress
on environmental resources. To deal with these
issues, a relatively new and upcoming tool, strategic
environmental assessment (SEA), has been intro-
duced in some countries (e.g. in the European
Union), which provides the opportunity for the as-
sessment of cumulative impacts at the strategic
level, as well as other improvements in assessment.
The main aim of the SEA and EIA instruments is to
take ecological issues into consideration in the plan-
ning and decision-making process, and to carry out
environmental assessment to provide for environ-
mental protection (Koeppel et al, 2004).
SEA is a process to ensure that significant envi-
ronmental impacts arising from policies, plans and
programmes are identified, assessed, mitigated,
communicated to decision-makers, and monitored,
and that opportunities for public involvement are
provided (EC, 2001). In the countries of the Euro-
pean Union, carrying out of SEA is obligatory for
Table 1. Relationship of spatial boundaries of the environmental assessment tools in the USA, the Russian Federation and the
European Union
USA
Strategic level Environmental Impact Statement for
the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)
EIS/EA
(National Environmental Policy Act,
adopted in 1969)
Project level
78
certain plans and programmes as required by the EC
Directive 2001/42/EC (Cooper and Sheate, 2004).
SEA is aimed at predicting and mitigating the possi-
ble negative impacts, and cumulative impacts, of so-
called strategic-level economic activities, while EIA
ensures similar procedures are carried out at the pro-
ject level. SEA has been developed as a means of,
inter alia, assessing cumulative impacts which are
not usually dealt with at the project level. The scope
of SEA is more appropriate to the time and spatial
scales in which cumulative impacts occur.
The comparison of the relevant Russian, Euro-
pean and US environmental tools at various levels of
analysis is presented in Table 1.
One of the essential differences between the pro-
ject-specific EIA and SEA is the consideration of
broader geographical and temporal boundaries to
include other past, present and reasonable future ac-
tions for assessing possible cumulative impacts
which result from incremental impacts of the action.
At the stage of identifying the environmental im-
pact of these activities, and the resources affected by
them, spatial boundaries for all the environmental
resources should be delineated through consideration
of different impact zones:
1. Activity under consideration;
2. Impacts from other projects and activities that
have been approved or are in the process of being
approved;
3. Projects and actions that may be induced by the
action in question.
When any overlap between the impact zones occurs,
it is concluded that the overlapping area could be
subjected to cumulative impacts. However, it is nec-
essary to limit the study only to those impacts that
may be significant to keep assessment at reasonable
and manageable levels (Dutta et al, 2004).
The following requirements (including some of
the specific SEA requirements) could improve the
EE and OVOS process:
• Interaction of the plan or the programme with
other plans and programmes;
• Alternative scenarios for development of the area;
Russia European Union
There is no analogous instrument Strategic environmental assessment
(EC, 2001)
There is some similarity with plan of
territorial planning (RF Urban
development code of 29 December
2004 N190-FL)
Ecological expertise (Federal law ‘On Environmental impact assessment (EC,
ecological expertise’ of 1995) and 1997)
OVOS (the Ministry of Natural
Resources order of 1994)
Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2009
 The EIA process in Russia

• List of alternatives and description of the reasons
for the choice of the final option;
• Outlining the objectives of environmental protec-
tion and how these objectives are taken into
account in the process of developing plans or
programmes.
All these requirements should be covered at the
scoping stage (the first step) of the OVOS process. If
SEA and other requirements (such as cumulative
impacts of various developments in the area) can be
considered at an earlier stage (and a higher level) of
planning, there is potential for EIAs for projects not
to become overloaded with superfluous information.
Comparison of NEPA and the Russian
OVOS documentation
The USA was the first country to introduce legal
requirements for a structured process that has since
been known as environmental impact assessment.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),
adopted in 1969, requires that federal agencies pre-
pare detailed analyses of any of their actions that
significantly affect the quality of the environment
(namely, environmental assessment [EA], and envi-
ronmental impact statement [EIS]). Major federal
actions are defined as those with impacts that may
be major and that are potentially subject to federal
control or responsibility (Yost, 2003). The EIS must
cover environmental impacts of the proposed action,
the negative environmental impacts that cannot be
avoided if the proposed action is implemented, al-
ternatives to the action, and any irreversible com-
mitments of resources that an action would involve
should it be implemented. To determine whether
there is a need to prepare an EIS, a preliminary EA
is often prepared first.
In this paper, comparison of EIA reports on the pro-
posed gas field exploration and development in Sibe-
ria and an oil-and-gas field in Alaska is carried out.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement for
EIS/EA of the Cook Inlet Planning Area Oil and Gas
Lease Sales Alaska OCS region, obtained from the US
Department of the Interior Mineral Management
(USDI MMS, 2003a,b), and the OVOS report on
Kovykta gas exploration and extraction project have
been analysed (Table 2). Different methodical materi-
als in relation to both OVOS and the preparation of an
EIS (Maksimenko and Gorkina, 1996; MNR, 1996;
Bass et al, 2001; Dyakonov et al, 2002; Dyakonov and
Doncheva, 2005; FRECOM and Institute of Geogra-
phy SB RAS, 2002) have been considered. The choice

Table 2. Comparison of EIA and OVOS statements for two oil-and-gas field exploration and development projects in the USA and
the Russian Federation, respectively

Final Environmental Impact Statement for Cook Inlet Planning Assessment of Environmental Impacts (OVOS) for the Kovykta
Area Oil and Gas Lease Sales in the Alaska region, USA gas field exploration and development project in the Irkutsk
region, Russian Federation

Accessibility of data
Open access to reports for any interested individual or Reports only available from special libraries and archives subject to
organization (available from libraries and by mail) the developer’s agreement
Period covered
Environmental conditions at present, during construction, extraction, Environmental conditions at present, during construction, extraction,
and decommissioning taking into account reasonably foreseeable and decommissioning
activities (during next 15–20 years) that can contribute to cumulative
impacts
The purposes of the environmental assessment process are:
A. To support the goals of environmental protection and sustainable A. To define the potential adverse impacts of the project on the
development environment
B. To integrate environmental protection and economic decisions at B. To estimate ecological consequences of the project for the
the earliest stages of the planning process environment
C. To predict environmental, social, economic, and cultural C. To develop proposals for the mitigation, reduction and prevention
consequences of a proposed project and to mitigate any adverse of negative impact on the environment of the project
impacts resulting from the project
D. To provide for involvement of the public, and agencies and
departments of government in the review of the project
Stages
1. Draft EIS is prepared and the department distributes copies to 1. Preliminary development of the Terms of Reference for OVOS.
all known interested parties and organizations, local agency Developer presents the description of the project, aims, and the
offices, and public libraries. The public is provided with an description of the implementation conditions
opportunity to give written comments during the extended 2. Investigations are carried out and a draft report is produced in
comment period, and oral comments during public hearings compliance with the Terms of Reference
2. Final EIS drawn up taking into account results of public review of 3. Public hearings are carried out, and a final report is produced
draft EIS taking into account the results of the comments received.
Proceedings of public hearings must be included in the final report*
4. The developer of the project approves the final report and, together
with the supporting documentation, submits this report for state
and public EE of the project

(continued)

Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2009 79

The EIA process in Russia
Table 2. (continued)
Final Environmental Impact Statement for Cook Inlet Planning
Area Oil and Gas Lease Sales in the Alaska region, USA
Contents
Executive summary
• Geographic scope of proposed action;
• Context of the proposed sales;
• Preferred development scenario for purposes of analysis;
• Impacts of the proposed action (Alternative 1), for each sale:
• impacts from routine permitted activities
• impacts from unlikely large oil spill, and
• cumulative impacts
• Summary of the impacts of No Lease Sale (Alternative 2);
• Impact of the two deferral alternatives (Alternatives 3 and 4);
• Mitigation measures assumed to be part of the proposed action
and alternatives
Purpose and background of the proposed action
Descriptions of the four alternatives, identification of agency-
preferred alternative, list of mitigation measures
Alternatives, including the proposed action
Description in detail of the analytical approach to assessing the
hydrocarbon-resource potential of the deposit, and the
development scenarios for operational activities that were used to Risk assessment and assessment of damage from the project on the
estimate environmental impacts
Description of the affected environment
In this section the physical characteristics, biological resources,
social systems, and infrastructure of the site are described
Environmental consequences
Detailed information on all the assumptions used in the assessment
of impacts. Positive and negative impacts of taking no action are
described (Alternative 2). Analysis of the affects on 19 resource
categories, including visual resources – under most categories
the impacts from permitted activities are presented, including
noise and disturbance, the general impacts of small oil spills, and Development of parameters for the buffer areas according to existing
the impacts of an unlikely large spill with associated cleanup
activities
Cumulative impacts
This section describes the approach used in analyzing cumulative
impacts; details of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable
activities that contribute to cumulative impacts; the assessment of
cumulative impacts on the 19 resource categories, and the
contribution that the proposed activity makes to the cumulative
impacts
Consultation and coordination
Comments on the Draft EIS from organizations and individuals
Review and analysis of comments received
This section includes copies of comments and responses to
comments
Appendices
Include technical information on oil spills, resource estimates,
consultation on the Endangered Species Act and the Essential
Fish Habitat, other applicable laws and regulations, and the
Scoping Report
Note: ∗ This statement relates to the OVOS process in general as described by the legislation
of the case studies was determined by similarities be-
tween the developments and climatic conditions.
Main observations
1. The EIS includes SEA and CEA tools and consid-
ers development of environmental conditions over
the next 15–20 years assuming appearance of
other economic activities within the territory; is-
sues not dealt with in the OVOS documentation.
2. The EIS considers different alternatives of the
80
Assessment of Environmental Impacts (OVOS) for the Kovykta
gas field exploration and development project in the Irkutsk
region, Russian Federation
General information
Brief information about the project developer and legislation in the
area of ecological concern
Technology for extraction and transportation
Estimation of the current environmental conditions at the proposed
sites and in adjacent territories (zone of influence)
The following issues are assessed for 16 resource categories, such
as air quality, water, soil. Visual resources are considered only
indirectly through legislatively fixed preserved territories and nature
monuments
Estimation of natural processes and phenomena that might cause
emergency conditions (earthquakes, floods, fires and others)
Assessment of impacts of the project on the environment and natural
resources, taking into account existing background influences.
Outlining main ecological problems arising from extraction and
transportation of gas
environment
Assessment of social and economic conditions Assessment of
impacts of the project on traditional land uses of the small local
population living within the areas of the project
Development of mitigation measures to minimize adverse impacts of
the project on all components of the environment at all stages of the
project
Development of standards for maximum permissible concentrations
in relation to various types of environmental impacts
sanitary and hygiene standards
Development of ecological monitoring programmes for control over
the construction, operation and decommissioning stages
Economic assessment of mitigation measures including payments
and entitlement payment (for routine operation and emergency
conditions); estimation of compatibility of the project with the
existing economic activities
Proceedings of public hearings and analysis of comments
Appendices
List of existing legislation, guidance and standards; bibliography;
maps; calculation of damage to fish resources; calculation of
concentrations of contaminants in soils and air from emissions with
maps; design drawings and technical data; waste management
system
project and for each alternative the possible ad-
verse impacts on the environment and natural re-
sources are assessed. The requirements for the
OVOS documentation do not cover alternatives
and their impacts.
3. In the EIS, impacts on visual resources are as-
sessed while the OVOS documentation omits
these impacts.
4. The OVOS documentation contains a monitoring
programme while the EIS does not cover monitor-
ing issues.
Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2009

An example of how the efficiency of the
OVOS process can be improved:
the Kovykta gas field case study
General information
To illustrate how the OVOS process in Russia can
be improved through introducing the consideration
of alternatives, a case study was conducted on the
Kovykta gas field in the Irkutsk Oblast of the Rus-
sian Federation. The gas field was officially discov-
ered in 1987, is located in the East Siberian part of
Russia and covers an area of 7,499.5 km2. Resources
of the Kovykta gas condensate field in the Irkutsk
Oblast, according to data from the Ministry of
Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, are
estimated at 2.13 trillion m3 of gas and 74.9 million
tons of gas condensate (FRECOM, 2005).
For the industrial development of gas resources in
the field to commence, it is necessary to drill and
equip several hundred boreholes and to lay hundreds
of kilometres of pipelines, roads and electric mains
(FRECOM, 2005). The field is located in the imme-
diate proximity of Lake Baikal (Figure 1) and within
a permafrost island zone. The need to apply SEA
tools for this project is defined by, first, the impor-
tance of a full assessment of the impacts on the
health and life of the local population (the Evenkis)
and, second, the existence of conflict between the
plans for industrial development of this area and the
goals of wildlife management.
Alternative scenarios for development of the area
The key lesson that can be drawn from the EIA for
oil and gas lease sales in Alaska (Table 2) is the
Figure 1. Remote sensing image of the Baikal region highlighting the
boundaries of the Kovykta gas field
Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2009
The EIA process in Russia
need to elaborate several potential development
scenarios for the purposes of analysis. To show how
a specific OVOS process and previously mentioned
OVOS report elaborated for project gas exploration
and extraction in Russian Federation (Table 2) can
be improved, the authors of the paper developed
three scenarios of the industrial development of the
Irkutsk Oblast based on the need to use the Kovykta
field for gas extraction, processing and transporta-
tion over future decades. Each scenario examines the
potential for mitigation of the expected impacts on
the environment caused by the development. The
scenarios include the so-called ‘Zero’ Alternative,
‘Moderate Extraction’, and ‘Intensive Extraction’.
Possible scenarios for exploration and development
of the field over several decades are considered.
It is suggested that the OVOS process for this pro-
ject cover assessment of the likely cumulative im-
pacts of industrial activities that will occur in the
area of the Kovykta gas field and the cumulative
impacts of future industrial activities. All projections
of activities and accumulation of their impacts are
uncertain because many factors, some of which are
highly unpredictable, will influence the location and
extent of exploration and extraction of gas at the
Kovykta gas field; for example, gas extraction and
marketing depend on the gas price.
Even if price and political stability continue to
favour gas exploration, many variables influence the
amount of activity and success of the future explora-
tion and development, such as land availability, the
regulatory environment, technology, exploration
rationale, competition and infrastructure.
‘Zero’ Alternative This scenario is based on the as-
sumption that the extraction of gas at the Kovykta
Lake Baikal
81
The EIA process in Russia
gas field will be postponed in the long term, and
the development of the area will be delayed.
Abandoning the project would allow the current
environmental conditions of the areas planned for
construction of the gas supply equipment and infra-
structure to remain. On the other hand, abandoning
the project will increase the use of the area’s other
natural resources (e.g. timber, furs and fish).
‘Moderate Extraction’ This scenario is based on the
assumption that economic activities will gradually
develop in accordance with government regulations
for protection of nature protection, maintenance of
ecological networks, and the system of compensa-
tion for the loss of nature. The moderate extraction
scenario is based on gas being supplied only to the
southern areas of the Irkutsk Oblast. Implementation
of this scenario will lead to the improvement of the
ecological conditions of the Irkutsk Oblast because
of the transition to a more environmentally friendly
fuel. Within the framework of this scenario, five
multiple well platforms and about 20 development
wells will be built, as well as pipelines connecting
the gas field to different cities alongside the existing
roads.
It is generally acknowledged that the creation of
one job in the gas production industry will generate
approximately four jobs in adjacent industries
(FRECOM, 2005). It is assumed that the population
of the region will grow, causing an increased need
for the development of the local infrastructure (agri-
culture, roads, power supply and communication
equipment, housing, social and cultural complexes).
Consequently, the area will become more industrial-
ised and urbanised.
‘Intensive Extraction’ This scenario is based on the
assumption that the world market prefers rapid eco-
nomic development of the area. The proposed pipe-
line would start at the Kovykta gas field before
passing through various cities of the Irkutsk Oblast
to other states. The overall length of the gas pipeline
would exceed 5,000 km, with branches constructed
from the main gas pipeline for delivery of gas to the
nearby regions. Several years are required for the
construction of the main gas pipeline.
Capital investments in the Irkutsk Oblast gas in-
frastructure would make hundreds of millions of US
dollars (FRECOM, 2005). Pipelines, as well as the
gas- and condensate-processing facilities would be
constructed. Implementation of this project would
require tens of thousands of professionals for the
period of construction, and thousands of profession-
als during the operation of the pipelines (FRECOM,
2004). Hence, the population of this area would in-
crease several times, and its demographic indicators
would also change. It would be necessary to: create
a new transport network; modify existing or create
new utilities, such as power lines; provide civil
amenities, such as housing, schools, medical facili-
ties, and water; arrange for waste removal and
82
disposal; and construct a water treatment plant. All
these activities would entail serious alterations to the
existing land use in the area.
Conclusions
The main objective of the proposed improvements of
the OVOS process is to suggest practical use of SEA
tools within the general OVOS framework. Applica-
tion of the proposed approach to the case study al-
lows for the assessment of impacts from the project
and from activities that this project is likely to in-
duce within other industries in the region. Some re-
quirements for the scoping stage are also proposed
that could improve the OVOS process. The process
considers both project-related impacts and impacts
from the development of adjacent industries in the
region leading to considerable cumulative impacts.
The comparison — between the OVOS report for
a gas field exploration and transportation project in a
Siberian region of Russia, and the EIS for oil and
gas lease sales in the Alaska region — has shown
some strengths and weaknesses of the OVOS pro-
cess in the Russian Federation. These results reveal
key lessons to increase both the timeframe and area
for assessment, together with the level of detail of
the Russian OVOS process, and particularly:
• Consideration of cumulative impacts for each
relevant resource, and the analysis of all past, pre-
sent, and reasonably foreseeable future actions (as
well as other ongoing projects in the area that
might contribute to these impacts) should be in-
cluded in the OVOS process.
• The OVOS process should include the analysis
of various alternatives of project development,
taking into account different assumptions and
possible changes and giving greater emphasis to
the cumulative analysis.
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