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Russia keeps foreign majors guessing on Shtokman gas project
By Dario Thuburn
AFP
MOSCOW
Petroleumworld.com 12 09 06Foreign firms can still help develop Russia's giant Shtokman gas field under new conditions, Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said on Friday, weeks after Gazprom dashed the hopes of five energy majors.
"It is a possibility that partners will be engaged in developing the project in many different ways -- as executors of important parts of the project and also as possible participants in the project," Khristenko said.
"But now it's going to be under a different framework and different conditions," he added, without specifying whether foreign companies could be contractors or partners in the project with state-controlled Gazprom.
The 3.7 trillion cubic metre gas field in the Russian section of the Barents Sea is one of the the world's few known giant gas reserves that is yet to be tapped, and is a major potential energy source for Europe and the United States.
"For the EU (European Union), this gas field is extremely important," said Andris Piebalgs, the EU's Energy Commissioner, who spoke alongside Khristenko after Europe-Russia energy talks in Moscow.
But the project's future has been cloudy since Gazprom rejected its entire short-list of potential foreign partners in the Shtokman project -- US Chevron and ConocoPhillips, France's Total and Norway's Hydro and Statoil -- in a surprise announcement in October.
"I was very glad that the minister mentioned there could be some partners attached to this project," Piebalgs said on Friday.
"Some European companies that had been shortlisted have very good experience working in extreme conditions... I wish that they will be successful in cooperating with Gazprom in producing gas from this field."
Analysts said Russia's position on foreign involvement in Shtokman was unclear, even after President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published Thursday that Russia continued to welcome "interesting proposals" on Shtokman.
"The current roadmap is suspect... We don't have a decision, we don't have any certainty," said Adam Landes, chief oil and gas analyst at the Moscow-based Renaissance Capital investment house.
"The whole issue as to what comes first, who comes first, who invests, where the gas goes, is deeply intertwined with politics... Politics are clearly involved," Landes said.
The key problem with the Shtokman deal, Landes said, is that Russia has a higher estimation of the value of the project than the one calculated by foreign energy majors.
"Gazprom has a view of its worth that does not correspond with that of would-be investors," Landes said. He added, however, that the field "remains one of the few gigantic assets that may or may not be available."
Valery Nesterov, energy analyst at the Troika Dialog investment bank in Moscow, agreed that the Russian position was unclear.
"It's difficult to predict what this could mean," he said.
AFP 08 1321 GMT 12 06
Copyright© 2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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