Nowadays development of the Arctic shelf and the continental slope resources is one of the most promising areas in the world oil and gas industry growth. Russia, unlike other countries with Arctic hydrocarbon reserves, implements only a few projects on the Northern shelf due to the difficult natural and climatic conditions and ecological vulnerability of the territory. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the feasibility of hydrocarbon resources development on the Russian Federation Arctic shelf in the long term. The article analyzes the external and internal factors affecting the decline in the rate of oil and gas exploration and production in this region in recent years. It considers state support measures reflected in the Strategy for the Russian Arctic Zone Development and Ensuring National Security - 2035, and a number of other laws and regulations developed and adopted after 2014. Special attention is given to the development of high-tech imports phase-out; specialists training; science, education and business integration; reducing the tax burden; environmental issues. The tasks facing state authorities, oil and gas companies, scientific and educational organizations have been identified that will lead to the successful Arctic shelf reserves development. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).