The European Union has published amendments to its decisions on restrictions imposed with respect to the Russian oil industry due to the situation in Ukraine.

The EU says in its official journal that its decision of July 1 prohibited equipment supplies for oil exploration and production in the Arctic. The amendments clarify that this only applies to the Arctic shelf.

Onshore fields in the Russian Arctic include Lukoil's Khylchuya and Laiyevozhskoye fields; Rosneft's Vankor cluster - Vankor, Suzunskoye, Ruskoye, Tagulskoye, Lodochnoye and Russko-Rechenskoye; Gazprom Neft's Novoport field; and the Kharyaga field, governed by a production-sharing agreement with France's Total as operator.

The EU also clarified that restrictions apply to the means to explore and produce oil in waters deeper than 150 meters; and for projects that have the potential to produce oil from resources located in shale formations by way of hydraulic fracturing; they do not apply to exploration and production through shale formations to locate or extract oil from non-shale reservoirs.

The EU removed from the original decision a clause that authorization may be granted where the sale, supply, transfer or export concerns the execution of an obligation arising from a contract concluded before August 1, 2014 is concerned. The EU may, however, grant an authorization to supply equipment under ancillary contracts necessary for the execution of such a contract.

Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi told Interfax that in the past, "foreign companies may have been in some doubt as to whether they could work in the Russian Arctic one on onshore projects. Now this is set down clearly."

By allowing European companies to operate at depths of not more than 150 meters, the EU has brought its sanctions into line with those of the United States, Donskoi said.