Russia is a key player in the Arctic zone due to significant natural resources. Merely the presence of significant oil and gas reserves on the Arctic shelf does not guarantee the success of Russia’s oil and gas offshore projects, since a whole group of contradictory factors influence their implementation. In this article, we offer an approach and conduct an analysis of the prospects of such projects. This is done through the systematization of key factors that have positive or negative impacts on possibilities the oil and gas companies to launch Arctic projects, and the classification of key indicators for assessing their prospects. Finally, we discuss the main methods of long-term forecasting which can be applied to development of such projects. We argue that based on the factors discussed in the paper, it is possible to produce useful long-term forecasts, which can help in making decisions about the development of Arctic shelf.