Dragon Oil and Petronas to Yield Their Shares in Turkmen Projects to Russia's Zarubezhneft and Itera
Published:
19 October 2003 y., Sunday
Western companies have been contemplating whether to accept or reject Ashkhabat's offers to develop the hydrocarbon reserves on the Turkmen shelf of the Caspian Sea. Turkmenistan has insisted that its 32 blocks totaling over 70 thousand square kilometers contain 16.5 billion tons of oil equivalent. Investors are daunted not only by the insufficient extent of the blocks' exploration but also by the absence of export prospects. Dragon Oil and Petronas are showing investors one way out of this blind alley with their plan to concede their project shares to the Russian company Zarubezhneft and international gas trader Itera in exchange for access to export trunks.
Russian Zarubezhneft and Itera are planning to set up a joint venture to participate in at least two oil-and-gas projects on the Turkmen shelf of the Caspian Sea. A source close to Zarubezhneft executives told RusEnergy.com that these are projects to develop the Cheleken Block and the neighboring Block-1. A little earlier, Zarubezhneft CEO Nikolai Tokarev affirmed it in an interview to the Oil & Capital magazine (№ 11 - 2001). Official representatives of the operators, however, refuse to confirm the existence of the deal with Russian companies.
An agreement on the Russian joint venture unifying the projects will be signed in the coming months, a source in Zarubezhneft reports. The joint venture will allegedly acquire an unspecified part of the present participants' shares. Currently, these projects are already being implemented in accordance with the production sharing agreement (PSA) between Turkmenistan and foreign companies. Dragon Oil is the Cheleken operator with its controlling stock owned by the United Arab Emirates (through the Emirates National Oil Company). Malaysia's Petronas is the operator of the Block-1 development project.
The intention of the Zarubezhneft-Itera alliance to join the projects has received an enthusiastic response from both foreign companies and Turkmen authorities. After meeting with the heads of the Russian companies Turkmenistan's president Saparmurat Niyazov declared his support of their plans.
Šaltinis:
RusEnergy.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
The European Commission has approved, under EC Treaty state aid rules, an amendment to a Lithuanian scheme allowing aid to be granted of up to €500 000 per company, initially approved on 8 June 2009.
more »
As agreed by the President of the European Commission and the President of the Russian Federation during the last EU-Russia Summit in Khabarovsk, the EU and Russia have strengthened the current dispositions under the EU-Russia Energy Dialogue to prevent and manage potential energy crises, with an enhanced Early Warning Mechanism.
more »
The European Union has today presented to the World Trade Organization the trade facilitation projects it has financed between 2006 and 2008.
more »
The European Commission has authorised, under the EC Treaty’s rules on state aid, a planned state guarantee by Romania to enable Ford Romania SA to access a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
more »
The economic crisis has left many countries with budget deficits well over the 3% limit. The commission is proposing deadlines for reducing the gaps.
more »
Statistics Lithuania informs that in October 2009, against September, prices for consumer goods and services went down by 0.4 per cent.
more »
Lithuania’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Šarūnas Adomavičius took part in bilateral political consultations with representatives from foreign affairs, commerce and transport ministries of the People’s Republic of China.
more »
Under the budgetary surveillance powers conferred by the EU Treaty, the European Commission today proposed to the Council to set 2013 as the deadline for the correction of the budget deficits in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Portugal.
more »
A joint partnership between the World Bank, the Moldovan Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry and the Ministry of Environment was launched in Moldova’s capital in the late days of October.
more »
World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick today joins senior officials from the Government of Singapore to launch a new global urban strategy that will guide Bank advisory services and financing in the sector over the next decade.
more »