OREANDA-NEWS. January 23, 2009.The Gazprom Management Committee took notice of the information regarding Gazprom’s participation in the offshore field development.

The Management Committee authorized the specialized subdivisions with the following tasks:

• to elaborate and submit to the Company’s leadership the amended Program for Gazprom’s activities aimed at hydrocarbon resources development on the Russian Federation shelf until 2030;
• to proceed with the activities related to bringing onstream the top-priority fields on the Russian Federation shelf: the Prirazlomnoye oil field in 2011, the Shtokman gas and condensate field in 2013 and the Kirinskoye gas and condensate field in 2014;
• to keep on the preparation of the resource base for the Gazprom offshore projects abroad;
• to prepare an offshore projects staffing plan;
• to continue cooperating with the concerned ministries on the government support measures when developing Russia’s shelf;
• to prepare materials for reviewing the issue "On Gazprom’s participation in the offshore field development" at the Board of Directors’ meeting.

Background:

The initial aggregate hydrocarbon resources of Russia’s continental shelf average 100 billion tons of fuel equivalent, of which 80 per cent is gas. The bulk of the hydrocarbon resources (around 70 per cent) is concentrated in the Barents, Pechora and Kara Seas, with gas and condensate prevailing in the Barents and Kara, and oil – in the Pechora Sea.

The Program for Gazprom’s activities aimed at hydrocarbon resources development on the Russian Federation shelf until 2030 was elaborated in fulfillment of the resolution of the Management Committee "On the Concept of Gazprom’s activities on the Russian Federation shelf", dated November 27, 2003. The basic provisions of the Program were approved by the Gazprom Management Committee in September 2005.

The Arctic offshore is recommended by the Program as a sector of paramount study, resource base development and new oil & gas extraction provinces formation.

Between 2005 and 2008 the implementation of geological exploration on the Russian shelf increased Gazprom’s reserves by more than 1.5 billion tons of fuel equivalent. The expected growth of Gazprom’s hydrocarbon reserves on the Russian shelf between 2009 and 2020 will reach in the order of 5.6 billion tons of fuel equivalent.

Gazprom considers the Barents, Kara, Pechora and Caspian Sea shelves, the Ob and Taz Bays offshore areas, the Okhotsk Sea shelf, including the Sakhalin Island and West Kamchatka offshore to be most promising.

At present, Gazprom holds 13 licenses for the right to use the subsurface resources of Russia’s offshore areas (the Shtokman, Prirazlomnoye, Kamennomysskoye-Sea, Severo-Kamennomysskoye, Dolginskoye, Obskoye, Chugoryakhinskoye, Semakovskoye, Antipayutinskoye, Tota-Yakhinskoye, Kruzenshternskoye, Kirinskoye fields and the Ob Bay area).

The prime development targets for Gazprom on Russia’s shelf are the Shtokman, Prirazlomnoye and Kirinskoye fields, as well as the Sakhalin II project implementation.

Gazprom is performing geological exploration in the Caspian Sea offshore: In 2008 TsentrCaspneftegaz (a joint venture of Gazprom and LUKOIL on a parity basis) discovered a major oil and gas condensate field within the Tsentralnaya structure.

Geological exploration is also in progress offshore Venezuela, Vietnam, India and Libya. In 2007 the Joint Operating Company of Gazprom and Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation Petrovietnam – Vietgazprom discovered the Bao Wang gas and condensate field offshore Vietnam in the Gulf of Bac Bo.