Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and OAO Gazprom Neft began a drilling campaign to assess the potential of Siberia’s Bazhenov formation, reckoned to be one of the world’s largest deposits of shale oil. Salym Petroleum Development, the venture between Shell and Gazprom Neft, has started drilling the first of five horizontal wells over the next two years that will employ multi-fracturing technology, according to a statement today. The Bazhenov layer, which underlies Siberia’s existing oil fields, has attracted Shell and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) because it’s similar to the Bakken shale in the U.S., where advances in drilling technology started a production boom. Exxon will also start a $300 million pilot project drilling in a different part of the Bazhenov with OAO Rosneft (ROSN) this year. “This is a big theme for Russia,” according to Ildar Davletshin, an oil and gas analyst at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. “Bazhenov holds […]