Foreign firms' fate at Shtokman gas field to be decided in spring

Dec 12, 2006, 18:11 GMT

Moscow - Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom will decide in the spring of 2007 on what terms it will allow foreign companies to participate in Shtokman, Europe's largest gas project, Interfax reported Tuesday.

'A conceptual scheme for the project's management and the wooing of foreign partners for the realization of the first phase of the field's development will be determined in the spring of 2007,' Gazprom said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said foreign companies would be allowed to enter the project in Russia's corner of the Arctic Barents Sea as contractors or 'innovative partners.'

After announcing a tender for foreign companies to obtain a 49 percent stake in Shtokman, Gazprom said in October that it would retain control of 100 per cent of the field's resources.

'International companies failed to offer assets matching Shtokman's reserves in amount and quality,' Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said at the time.

Khristenko said, however, on Tuesday that Gazprom could 'return to a discussion of any forms of participation (in Shtokman)' if it received 'interesting' offers, echoing remarks Russian President Vladimir Putin made last week about Shtokman.

Before the October decision, it had been widely believed that Gazprom would take on a Western major like Norway's Hydro or Statoil as a partner to ensure it was technologically equipped to drill into the deep basin of the Artic Ocean.

Gazprom's initial plan had envisioned sending Shtokman's natural gas to North America, a market Russia, supplier of one-quarter of Europe's gas, has yet to fully exploit.

The company ultimately decided to ship its gas to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline that is to run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Greifswald, Germany.

Shtokman's reserves are estimated to hold 3.7 trillion cubic metres of gas and 31 million tons of gas condensate.