With the formalities cleared up, Gazprom can start working on the Chayanda field this year. In the photo: Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller
Photo: Alexander Miridonov
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Gazprom Gets Deposit sans Competition
The Ministries of Natural Resources and of Industry and Energy have compromised and agreed that Gazprom can receive the Chayanda natural gas field in Yakutia without competition. The budget will be paid 8-10 billion rubles, which will not even compensate for exploration costs. The field, along with 13 others, was declared strategic last November. The field will require three more years of exploration, and Gazprom insisted that it be made available to it in the fastest possible manner, so that it can be put into production by 2016, as the Eastern gas program stipulates. The field's reserves are thought to be 1.26 trillion cu. m., although only 380 billion cu. m. have been proven so far.
In February, President Elect Dmitry Medvedev, who was first deputy prime minister and chairman of the board of Gazprom at the time, ordered the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ministry of industry and Energy to prepare a resolution on the transfer of the gas field. The Natural Resources Ministry refused to conciliate the resolution, however, insisting that it was illegal. There is no allowance made for licensing deposits without competition in the law “On Mineral Wealth.” Deputy Minister of Industry and Energy Andrey Dementyev stated yesterday, however, that there was an exception in the law on gas supply that allowed strategic deposits to be transferred to the unified gas supply system (i.e., to Gazprom) without competition.
Observers say that Gazprom was unlikely to have found competitors for the field in any case, after the experience of Kovykta, which TNK-BP was forced to sell to Gazprom. In addition, the scale of investment in production on the field, a minimum of $8-10 billion, would be prohibitive without benefits from the state that only Gazprom enjoys.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 15, 2008
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