ANKARA
A joint venture between Rosneft and ExxonMobil has discovered a huge amount of oil under the Arctic.
The state-run Russian oil company announced on Saturday that the University-1 well struck oil in the Kara Sea.
Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft, said the "oil trap" has 338 billion cubic meters of gas and more than 100 million tonnes (733 million barrels) of oil.
The total resources in the area are estimated at 13 billion tonnes (87 billion barrels) of oil equivalent, according to the Rosneft statement.
According to experts, the amount of oil and gas is comparable to the resource base of Saudi Arabia.
The world's largest oil field, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, has estimated reserves of 75 billion barrels remaining, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Sechin said: "This is our united victory. It was achieved thanks to our friends and partners from ExxonMobil."
ExxonMobil announced last Friday that the U.S. Treasury Department has granted it a licence to "wind down" operations at the well, in response to U.S. and EU sanctions imposed on Russia over the unrest in Ukraine.
"The drilling was completed in record-breaking time - in one and a half months - in compliance with all the technological and ecological standards and requirements," said the Rosneft statement.
Rosneft and ExxonMobil started drilling the University-1 well, the world's northernmost well, in August.
The field will be named Pobeda, which means "victory" in Russian.
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