Company news in July 2004 | |||
Holed In the Sakhalin V Project
To all appearances, work under the Sakhalin V Project will start in the next few weeks. As Sir John Brown, President of UK's BP, said in Moscow yesterday, the company he heads had concluded an agreement with Rosneft for establishment of a management company to be in charge of development of the fields located in the southern part of the Sakhalin V Project on Wednesday. "We signed the agreement that will enable to get down to drilling of the first well in the near future," writes Interfax citing Sir Brown. "As geological information arrives, Rosneft and we are going to determine the project's further parameters." Obviously, establishment of the management company gives "the green light" to BP to start negotiations with Rosneft as to the possibility of transfer of the British company's stake in the project to the Russo-British TNK-BP, as was planned when the Anglo-British holding was founded. The Sakhalin V Project includes the Kaigan/Vasyukan, East Schmidt, Elizaveta, and Khanguzin blocks. Projected reserves of contractual areas are estimated at 783 million tons of oil and 432 billion cubic meters of gas. However, so far the companies have signed the agreement for establishment of a management company for the Kaigan/Vasyukan block only. The new entity was called Alvare Neftegas Holdings BV. Rosneft holds 51% in it, and the rest belongs to BP. Alvare Neftegas will be registered in the Netherlands, and consequently, relations among shareholders will be governed by international law. Other management and operating entities will be established for operations in other blocks – Rosneft and BP are willing to mitigate risks if the exploration results prove to be disappointing. The parties do not inform when the companies for operations in other fields of the project will be established. A spokesperson of BP reported: "Our Russian partners in TNK-BP (Alfa Group and Access/Renova) have an option of incorporating the Sakhalin V Project into the holding; if they exercise this option, all of the three companies will be able to start negotiations on this subject." TNK-BP said that it was still interested in inclusion of the Sakhalin projects.
Denis Rebrov
Source: Vremya Novostei