RusEnergy

05.31.07 - Associated Press By Matt Moore - A German court will issue a decision July 5 on whether to void a joint venture between BASF AG and OAO Gazprom after a U.S. oil company pressed its claims to a stake in a vast Siberian gas field. Forth Worth, Texas-based Moncrief Oil International Inc., a privately held U.S. gas company, is suing the chemical giant. Moncrief contends that the deal between Gazprom and BASF (nyse: BF - news - people )'s Wintershall AG unit should not be permitted because the U.S. company had inked its own deal with Gazprom in the late 1990s. Manfred Nax, a judge in the District Court of Frankthal, said he would rule on the case July 5, but added during a hearing Thursday that the issue was complex. Nax said that Moncrief's claim to the gas field is not in question, adding that "they have a contract from 1999 and it is valid." Nax said, however, that it was conceivable that Moncrief's complaint could be dismissed as unfounded, given that BASF did not appear to be in violation of any German law. He said that if anyone violated the contract it was Gazprom. A spokesman for Moncrief, Stephan Holzinger, said the U.S. company and its lawyers would discuss Nax's comments and file new arguments in July. In a statement, BASF said it supported Nax's comments and added that it had "conducted itself in a correct legal manner and has not infringed competition law." BASF has steadfastly maintained that Moncrief's claims are without merit. Moncrief Chairman Richard Moncrief repeated the company's assertion that its contract remains valid. "We know that our contract is valid," Moncrief said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press in Frankfurt. "All things were negotiated and discussed fully." Moncrief signed deals with Gazprom for a 40 percent stake of the Yuzhno Russkoye gas field, the value of which is estimated to be around $8.5 billion. Gazprom, which is not named in the lawsuit, has not commented on the case. Russia's Gazprom state-controlled natural gas monopoly and Germany's BASF struck an asset-swap deal in April 2006 that raised Gazprom's stake in BASF marketing subsidiaries in exchange for increasing the German company's share in a giant Siberian gas field. Klaus Nieding, a lawyer for Moncrief, said that BASF had been aware of Moncrief's own deal with Gazprom. Letters were sent by Moncrief to Wintershall CEO Reinier Zwitserloot and to Gazprom, he said. It is not the first time that Moncrief has gone to court to seek redress. A similar case was brought in the United States but was dismissed by a federal court, which said it did not have jurisdiction over the issue. That dismissal was upheld by an appeals court in March. Nieding, however, said the company hopes to have that case reheard.