Russian Deputy Prime Minister and chairman of the board of Rosneft wants oil companies to have access to Gazprom pipelines.
Photo: Alexander Miridonov
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Sechin Lets Oil Cos. at Gas Pipes
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin has given Gazprom and the Federal Antimonopoly Service a month to ease access for independent natural gas producers to the Gazprom-controlled Unified Gas Distribution System. The changes will most immediately affect state oil producer Rosneft, where Sechin is chairman of the board. Deputy chairman of the FAS Anatoly Golomolizn, Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yankovsky, deputy chairman of Gazprom Alexander Ananenkov, Rosneft head Sergey Bogdanichikov, Surgutneftegaz head Vladimir Bogdanov, chairman of Itera Vladimir Makeev and executives from TNK-BP, Nortgaz, NOVATEK, ESN Group and KES Holding were present at the meeting with Sechin on Saturday.
The session was organized at the initiative of the FAS. Sechin gave that agency and Gazprom until July 5 to work out a system for nondiscriminatory access to the gas lines. He especially noted that oil companies should have all the gas they produced accommodated. The FAS was to submit draft access rules to the government on July 7, and a draft was sent to the agencies involved on June 27, but the gas monopoly prevented the rules’ conciliation. FAS head Igor Artemyev stated at the end of last year that “Gazprom should have an unconditional right to access its own pipelines under international agreements and to meet its social obligations. The remaining part we propose to distribute by auction.” A source has stated that Gazprom argued that the FAS’s position did not correspond to the law “On Natural Gas Export” and others.
Russia produced 346 billion cu. m. of natural gas in the first half of this year. Gazprom was responsible for 289.6 billion cu. m. NOVATEK was the largest independent producer at 15 billion cu. m. Oil companies produced 28.4 billion cu. m., with LUKOIL and Surgutneftegaz each producing 7 billion cu. m., Rosneft 6.6 billion and TNK-BP 4.9 billion. Independent producers could account for 30 percent of Russia’s natural gas production, if it weren’t for limitations on access to pipelines.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 07, 2008
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