Lukoil for preserving equal stakes in National Oil Consortium - Alekperov
LONDON. Oct 16 (Interfax) - Lukoil is in favor of partners preserving equal stakes in the National Oil Consortium (NOC), which represents Russia in the Junin-6 project in Venezuela, Lukoil's president, Vagit Alekperov, told reporters in London.
"We consider the NOC to be a consortium of five participants. The consortium should, work as a consortium even after Surgutneftegas pulls out. Equal participation in the consortium taking into account that we have determined Rosneft to be our operator," he said.
The NOC shareholders are Rosneft, Lukoil, TNK-BP, Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas on an equal footing. Reports have said TNK-BP and Surgutneftegas are considering pulling out of NOC. Rosneft chief Igor Sechin has already said his company is ready to buy Surgutneftegas's stake.
NOC owns 40% of joint Russian-Venezuelan venture Petromiranda, the other 60% of which belongs to Venezuela's state-run Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). Petromiranda is developing the Junin-6 deposit in the Orinoco River basin, where oil production began late last month.
The Junin-6 block's geological reserves amount to 52.6 billion barrels of oil, with 10.96 billion barrels recoverable. Daily production by the JV will be a planned 450,000 barrels by 2018, according to plan. The operational period is 25 years with the possibility of a 15-year extension. Total costs for the block's development are estimated at almost $25 billion.
