Page 15 - AsianOil Week 47

AsianOil NRG AsianOil

Barents Sea. A lawsuit, backed by Greenpeace Vostok Oil is set to combine the fields in Ros-
Norway and Nature and Youth, is attempting to neft’s Vankor cluster – Vankorskoye, Lodoch-
use Norway’s founding principles as a justifica- noye, Suzunskoye and Tagulskoye – with the
tion for curbing oil and gas activity in the area. Paiyakha fields held by Neftegazholding, a pri-
The court is due to give a final verdict at around vate oil firm owned by former Rosneft presi-
the turn of the year. dent Eduard Khudainatov. Other Rosneft assets
Over in Romania, Russia’s Lukoil is under- including the West-Irkinsky block, and poten-
stood to be seeking an exit at offshore block tially the Baikalovskoye field it operates with BP Rosneft estimates
EX-3-Trident, further dimming prospects for will also be brought into the fold.
the country’s Black Sea gas development. Lukoil Production is expected to reach 25mn tonnes Vostok Oil’s
has an 87.8% stake in the block, while Romgaz per year (500,000 bpd) by 2024, rising to 1mn liquids resource
holds the remaining interest. Initial exploratory bpd by 2027 and 2.3mn bpd by 2030, and Ros-
work at the site in 2015 had indicated potential neft has also suggested that up to 50mn tpy of base at 6bn
recoverable gas deposits of around 30bn cubic LNG could also be developed from the fields’
metres. gas. These supplies will be delivered to markets barrels of oil
The move comes amid continued frustration on tankers via Russia’s Northern Sea Route.
over offshore legislation passed in 2018, which Rosneft estimates Vostok Oil’s liquids equivalent,
developers claim has made their projects unfea- resource base at 6bn barrels of oil equivalent although its fields
sible. The government has promised to address (boe), although its fields have not been inde-
the industry’s concerns after the country’s parlia- pendently appraised, creating doubts about the have not been
mentary elections in early December. But con- company’s lofty targets for future output.
sidering the bearish conditions on European gas Analysts at BCS Global Markets (GM) com- independently
markets at present, this may be seen as too little, mented that the deal was good for Rosneft’s stock
too late. “more for signalling that the ambitious project is appraised.
‘a go’ than for the size of the investment, which
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping itself has yet to be fully determined.”
Europe’s oil and gas sector then please click here for “Attracting a significant amount of foreign
NewsBase’s EurOil Monitor. investment to the Vostok Oil project has been
a Rosneft goal from day one, and this deal is
FSU: Rosneft attracts first Arctic partner important more for getting the process started,”
Russian state oil company Rosneft looks finally they said.
set to succeed in attracting a foreign partner to its
flagship Vostok Oil project in the Arctic, which it If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
says will one day yield over 2mn barrels per day the former Soviet Union’s oil and gas sector then please
(bpd) of oil. click here for NewsBase’s FSU Monitor.
Rosneft said last week that its board of direc-
tors had agreed on the sale of a 10% stake in its GLNG: Steps forward for Asian LNG pro-
Vostok Oil LLC subsidiary to Trafigura for an jects
undisclosed sum. Over the past week, significant developments
The pair are “at the advanced stage of negoti- have come for LNG projects in Asia, on both
ations” on closing the transaction, Trafigura was the import and export front. Media reported
quoted as saying by Kommersant. on November 23 that Chevron had restarted

Week 47 26•November•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15