Lukoil hoping have Tsentralnoye field license re-issued in 2014
ASTRAKHAN. April 17 (Interfax) - Russian oil giant Lukoil is planning on having the license for the Tsentralnoye oil and gas field in the Caspian Sea re-issued this year, Lukoil President Vagit Alekperov told journalists in Astrakhan on Thursday.
"We have a unified stance with Lukoil, Gazprom and our partner KazMunayGas that is supported by the Russian government. Currently, the agreement that was signed is being adjusted and added to. The legal commission has already approved it, [and] we are hoping the leaders of our countries will sign these addendums," he said.
The oil company LLC Tsentralnaya Oil and Gas Company, whose shareholders are Gazprom, Lukoil, and KazMunayGas, was registered in 2013 to develop the field.
The exploration license to the Tsentralnaya structure in the Russian sector of the Caspian was held by TsentrKaspneftegaz, which was equally owned by Lukoil and Gazprom. This firm discovered a field with reserves of 169.1 million tonnes of oil, but the exploration license expired and the joint venture could not get a production license due to a requirement of Russian law under which offshore fields can only be developed by companies in which the government owns more than 50%.
In February it was reported that the Russian Energy Ministry was drafting amendments to a protocol between Russia and Kazakhstan on providing LLC Tsentralnaya Oil and Gas Company with a seven-year license to explore the field. The protocol states the field should be developed under a production-sharing agreement, but that "now, on the basis of available geological data, it is impossible to share profitable production with maximum benefit for Russia. More precise information on hydrocarbon reserves is needed in order to determine the proportions of the split, and this requires the field to be studied further," the ministry said at the time.