Deadline for selling unclaimed foreign stake in Sakhalin-1 extended until end-2026
MOSCOW. Dec 24 (Interfax) - The deadline for selling the unclaimed stake of foreign partners in the new operator of the Sakhalin 1 project has been extended until the end of 2026.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on December 24 amending decree No. 723 of October 7, 2022, according to which the deadline for selling the stake in the project has been changed to "not later than January 1, 2027." The document was posted on the Official Legal Information Internet Portal.
The deadline for selling Exxon's unclaimed stake in the project was initially October 2023, and was subsequently extended until January 1, 2026.
Putin signed a decree in October 2022, according to which the project's previous operator, Exxon Neftegas Ltd. was replaced by a Russian LLC managed by JSC Sakhalinmorneftegaz-Shelf.
Sakhalinmorneftegaz-Shelf, which is a Rosneft subsidiary, is due 11.5% of the new operator, in proportion to its stake in the production-sharing agreement, and another 8.5% is managed by JSC RN-Astra. The foreign PSA participants Japan's SODECO (30%) and India's ONGC (20%) gave their consent to take up their pro-rata stakes in the new operator. ExxonMobil (30%) said it had decided to terminate its participation in the PSA and exit Russia entirely.
In accordance with the decree, the "relinquished" stake was to be valued and sold to a Russian legal entity that meets criteria defined by the Russian government. The starting price of the stake in Sakhalin-1 LLC will be the amount quoted by the valuer, B1-Consult LLC.
Sakhalin-1 includes three oil and gas fields: Chaivo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi off the northeast coast of Sakhalin Island. Their combined reserves are estimated at 307 million tonnes of oil and 485 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and annual production amounts to 11.3 million tonnes of oil.
The project reached peak oil production of 12.96 million tonnes in 2019, after which output declined to 12.44 million tonnes in 2020 and 11.3 million tonnes in 2021. Exact data on the project's oil production at the project in 2022-2025 have not been published.
