Surgutneftegas secures Paiturminsky hydrocarbon block in northern Siberia with prospective reserves
MOSCOW. May 25 (Interfax) - The subsurface resources commission for Central Siberia has decided to grant the rights to the Paiturminsky hydrocarbon block in northern Krasnoyarsk Territory to Surgutneftegas , the sole bidder in the auction for it, auction materials showed.
The final amount of the one-time payment for the 27-year resource use license will be 22.77 million rubles, which amounts to the starting price plus one bidding increment.
The 4,490-square-km block has forecast D1 category resources of 20 million tonnes of oil and 25 bcm of gas and D2 resources of 6.9 million tonnes of oil and 37.9 bcm of gas.
The auction for the rights to study, explore and produce hydrocarbons at this block was supposed to be held on June 5. Under the Russian law on subsurface resources, if such an auction is declared void because only one bidder applied to participate, the license can be granted to this bidder on the terms of the announced auction, taking into account the bidder's technical and economic proposal and price offer.
Surgutneftegas now has licences to 11 hydrocarbon blocks in Krasnoyarsk Territory: Agapsky and Dolgansky (received in 2018); Vostochno-Novotaimyrsky and Dudinskiye 1-3 (2021); Novo-Nadezhdinsky and Vostochno-Nadezhdinsky (January 2023); and Zapadno-Paiturminskiye 1-3 (March 2023).
The northern part of Krasnoyarsk Territory has become very attractive for oil and gas companies in recent years. The Natural Resources Ministry and Federal Subsurface Resources Agency have repeatedly stressed that a new oil province comparable to Yamal is taking shape in this undeveloped region.
Northern Krasnoyarsk Territory is also eligible for Arctic preferences that were approved at the federal level in 2020. The hydrocarbon resource base in this region is expected to become a key driver of growth in cargo traffic along the Northern Sea Route.
Major Russian oil companies already have a presence in this region, which has extremely low exploration maturity and is far from transport and oil and gas infrastructure. Rosneft has launched to huge Vostok Oil project on the Taimyr Peninsula, Gazprom Neft is forming a geological cluster in the area and Surgutneftegas has acquired several blocks for exploration on Taimyr.
Lukoil has also shown interest in the Arctic region, but after drilling a first exploration well at the Vostochno-Taimyrsky block to a depth of about 5,500 meters it failed to find commercially significant hydrocarbon reserves.