Govt commission able to alter Shtokman license - ministry
MOSCOW. Dec 24 (Interfax) - It is for the government's fuel and energy commission to decide on amendments to the license to the Shtokman gas condensate field in the Barents Sea, but it is not yet known when the commission will discuss this, Russian Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi told reporters.
"When this issue comes up for discussion it will be referred to the government's fuel and energy commission," Donskoi said, adding that the timing of the discussion depended solely on Gazprom and how advanced its selection of the development scheme for the field is.
"They haven't yet approached us officially. Gazprom has to decide internally and sort out its plan for developing the field," he said.
Gazprom has filed with subsurface resources agency Rosnedra for change in timeframes for getting the Shtokman deposit into operation, timeframes prescribed by the licensing agreement, deputy Rosnedra chief Igor Plesovskikh told the press at the end of October.
"An application for a change to the Shtokman licensing agreement has definitely been received. But the working group has not yet considered it," Plesovskikh said, explaining that procedures for reviewing the received documentation is underway, an analysis of the completeness of the documentation, and so on. Plesovskikh did not say by how much time the launch of Shtokman might be pushed back. "They [timeframes] will be changed and will be moved to later dates than envisaged in the license," he said.
The Gazprom press office has said the company has no applied to change the timeframe for bringing Shtokman on stream. "An application was filed o transfer the license from LLC Gazprom Oil Shelf to Gazprom," it said.
This past summer, the Shtokman partners were unable to reach a final investment decision so that the deposit could be into operation in 2016-2017. Now Gazprom is expecting that decision no earlier than 2014 and the start of production no earlier than 2019.
Gazprom, Total, and Statoil signed a shareholder agreement on the creation of SPV Shtokman Development in February of 2008. The SPV's job (Gazprom 51%, Total 25%, Statoil 24%) is to finance and build infrastructure bringing Shtokman gas to shore and liquefying it in the first phase of the project.
The holder of the license to the deposit and its 3.9 trillion cubic meters of gas is Gazprom subsidiary Gazprom Dobycha Shelf. Gazprom intends to carry out the second and third phases independently.
A possible change in project membership and its technical conception is now under discussion.