Monday, November 20, 2006
Gazprom Received Congratulations on New Deposits
11–20–2006 Kommersant.ru by Natalia Grib– // The monopolist will keep absorbing Russia’s natural gas resourcesRussian Cabinet of Ministers gave forecast for natural gas production in Russia by 2015. They predict that independent producers will have only 17-18 percent share in gas production, despite owning 24 percent of resource base. Gas production experts say this forecast will come true in one case – if Gazprom keeps overtaking major gas deposits of Russia, including those already belonging to private companies.
Deputy Premier Alexander Zhukov said on Friday that Russia will be extracting between 742 and 754 billions of cubic meters of natural gas by 2015. Such increase will be mostly due to developing the Shtokman deposit, deposits in Irkutsk region, including Kovyktinsk gas-condensate field, and a number of deposits in Far East.
Meanwhile, Gazprom member of board Andrey Kruglov said in London in October that the monopoly in that period would increase production up to 615 billion of cubic meters of gas. Thus, only 127-139 billion of cubic meters of gas, or 17-18.4 percent, remains for independent gas producers. In the next 9 years, they will be allowed to increase production very slowly.
Troika-Dialog experts remind that growth in gas production in Russia over the last 9 years (average -- 1.3 percent annually) was due not to Gazprom. Between 1998 and 2006, independent gas producers raised production up to 45 billion of cubic meters annually (four times more), while oil companies – up to 58 billion of cubic meters (two times more).
Gazprom now owns 29.1 trillion of cubic meters of gas in deposits, while independent companies own 11.5 trillion (24 percent), and 7.1 trillion more are still undivided. Gazprom will keep getting licenses for new deposits. However, even if the entire undivided fund becomes absorbed by Gazprom, its share of resources will grow up to 75.7 percent. Thus, the disparity between the volume of resources and extraction will remain. That is, independent companies will not be allowed to develop their resource base on their own.
# posted by Deval : 1:28 AM
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