MOSCOW, December 23 (RAPSI) - Greenpeace Russia has filed a request with the Prosecutor General’s Office to look into the validity of oil production on Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya oil rig, Greenpeace reports.

Greenpeace claims that the company has breached several provisions of the federal environmental protection and safety law. The organization described each violation in a separate message to the Prosecutor General’s Office and requested an immediate response.

Last Friday, Gazprom announced the launch of the Prirazlomnaya oil rig operations. It is the first Russian oil exploration project in the Arctic shelf. The Prirazlomnoye field opened in 1989 is located in the shelf of Pechora Sea, some 60 km off the shore at a depth of 19 to 20 meters.

On September 18, Greenpeace activists scaled the Prirazlomnaya drilling rig in the Pechora Sea, the southeastern part of the Barents Sea. Next day, the Arctic Sunrise ship was seized by Russian border guards in international waters, within Russia's exclusive economic zone.

The platform, owned by Gazprom Neft Shelf, a subsidiary of Russian energy giant Gazprom, is the first ice-resistant stationary oil platform in the world set to produce offshore Arctic oil.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic because they say that it is currently impossible to organize a thorough clean up of potential oil spills in the region, and that the drilling cannot be economically viable.