On a remote island off the eastern coast of Russia, encased in ice for nearly half the year, the future of the world oil and gas industry is beginning to take shape. And judging by the scale of the project that is coming into being around the bleak shores of Sakhalin, that future will be expensive, complex and, above all, big.

Off Sakhalin?s north coast, two of the largest concrete structures ever built in Russia have been installed in the sea. As large as football fields and as tall as 15-storey buildings, the offshore platform bases have been towed in from 1,000 nautical miles away. Some 6,000 construction workers labour in temperatures that can reach minus 40 degrees laying 800km pipelines down the length of the island.