Russia's Rosneft said on Dec. 28 it had bought the rights to a huge oil field in the Taymyr peninsula in the Arctic, as it presses ahead with plans to use the Northern Sea Route to ship oil and products.

In a regulatory disclosure, Rosneft said it had bought Taimyrneftegaz, the company controlled by Rosneft's ex-chief Eduard Khudainatov which owns the huge Payakha oil field, for an undisclosed sum.

It declined to comment further.

The potential deal was first reported by daily newspaper Kommersant earlier this month. The daily, citing a source, reported that the Payakha oil field could be valued at around $5 billion, given its huge reserves.

The daily said field's reserves were estimated at more than 1 billion tonnes of oil, or 7.33 billion barrels. The field is now at the exploration stage, with no large-scale production.