The launch took place at a new terminal in Sever Bay, where Sechin, Rosneft's chief executive, reported to Putin by video link. By that point Rosneft had built 790 kilometres of pipeline and the world's northernmost oil terminal, complete with berths and a protective dam, according to Sistema and the Arktida project.
Estimates of the project's total budget vary. Sistema and Arktida put it at 10 trillion roubles, while Ekho cited 11.8 trillion. In 2023 Sechin estimated the required investment at about 12 trillion roubles, with a resource base of 6.5 billion tonnes of oil and 10 trillion cubic metres of gas. The site is eventually to host 15 field camps, two airfields and around 100,000 jobs.
The largest private contractor on the construction site, according to Sistema and Arktida, is SinaraStroyKomplekt. Between June 2021 and April 2026 the company received almost 900 billion roubles under contracts with Vostok Oil. Since 2021 it has paid shareholders 56 billion roubles in dividends. The firm is linked to billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky, long a fixture on the Forbes list.
Pumpyansky and Sechin have been connected since at least the late 2000s. The businessman joined a government commission on metallurgy chaired by Sechin, then deputy prime minister, and a year later joined the organising committee of the Innoprom exhibition, which Sechin also oversaw. Sources cited by Gazeta.Ru called Pumpyansky "Sechin's man". In the mid-2010s Rosneft signed a long-term contract with him for the supply of more than 3.5 million tonnes of pipe, worth more than 200 billion roubles.
At the end of 2018, two Germans invested in the billionaire's business: Matthias Warnig and Thomas Hendel. Warnig, a former Stasi intelligence officer and a long-time acquaintance of Vladimir Putin, sat on Rosneft's management. Hendel was Rosneft's chief of staff and an adviser to Sechin.
Another major contractor on the project is Yamaldorstroi, founded by businessman Mars Gainutdinov. In 2021 the company took on the construction of oil pipelines and berths and the development of quarries at Vostok Oil. The following year the tax authorities assessed an additional 629 million roubles against it for 2017-2019, and with penalties the total claims exceeded 900 million. A bankruptcy case was opened against the company.
One of the beneficiaries of the mega-project turned out to be Marat Kabayev, father of Alina Kabayeva, who is described as Putin's companion and the mother of his children. In the spring of 2026 he acquired 25% of Taimyr Invest, a large logistics company working at the site. In 2024 Taimyr Invest faced tax claims: the tax authorities assessed more than 3 billion roubles in additional taxes and about 800 million in penalties, and court documents referred to tax evasion through shell companies. According to Kabayev, he became a co-owner of the company after a conversation with Nikolai Patrushev, former FSB director and aide to Putin.
Taimyr Invest's revenue in 2024 was 55.3 billion roubles, up from 13.2 billion a year earlier, with net profit reaching 1.6 billion. Court documents name SinaraStroyKomplekt as the company's key customer.
Rosneft declined to answer questions about the contractors, saying the state company's standards do not allow it to discuss production and commercial activity publicly. It described Vostok Oil as a project of the utmost importance for global energy.