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Lockdown lifted at Gazprom field

delivering gas to China

PROJECTS & A lockdown imposed at Gazprom’s Chayan- Gazprom is also developing a second large
COMPANIES dinskoye gas field in Eastern Siberia to contain field in Eastern Siberia, Kovyktinskoye, which
a coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has been the company projects will provide a further 25
lifted, local authorities said on June 1. bcm per year for delivery to China. According
The field has been pumping gas to China via to Lenta.ru, though, this is goal is unlikely to be
the Power of Siberia pipeline since December, reached either.
but Gazprom insists that supplies have not been Gazprom may therefore struggle to honour
affected by the quarantine. its 2014 gas supply contract with China’s CNPC,
The lockdown was first put in place in mid- which calls for the delivery of up to 38 bcm
April, days after the first COVID-19 confirmed per year of gas over a 30-year period, Lenta.ru
at the site. The virus quickly spread, with an offi- reported.™
cial at Russia’s health ministry stating on May 3
than over 3,000 of the 10,000 workers stationed
at the field in Yakutia had tested positive.
A key contractor at the field, Stroytransneft-
egaz, later said it had halted all work and would
not resume operations until the lockdown had
been lifted.
Announcing the quarantine’s end, Yaku-
tia’s government said this week that over 8,000
workers had been removed from the field and
of these, 140 people had been taken to medical
facilities. Some 2,500 shift workers remain at the
site, and gas production continues as usual, the
government said.
Russia is currently working to bring Chayan-
dinskoye to its planned output plateau of 25bn
cubic metres per year – a target it expects to reach
in 2022-2023. However, a recent investigation by
Russian news agency Lenta.ru claims Gazprom
has overestimated the field’s production capacity.

CNOOC passes on

Tullow’s Uganda deal

FINANCE & TULLOW Oil has cleared another hurdle though, that the finalisation of the deal still
INVESTMENT towards the sale of its stake in several Ugandan hinged on securing the necessary approvals from
projects to Total. shareholders and various government agen-
In a statement dated May 28, the company cies, as well as on the signing of a binding tax
announced that the third partner in these agreement with the Uganda Revenue Authority
projects, China National Offshore Oil Corp. (URA) and the government of Uganda.
(CNOOC), had decided not to exercise its right Now that CNOOC has opted against exer-
to buy half of the equity in the relevant assets on cising its right to pre-empt part of the deal
the same terms as Total. with Total, it added, Tullow is in a position to
“Accordingly, there are no changes to the move forward with respect to the signing of
previously announced transaction or time- a tax accord. The final form of the agreement
line,” it said. reflects the terms that the parties agreed on in
CNOOC’s move should allow Tullow to late April, it said.
complete the sale to Total as planned in the sec- Tullow had said in late April that the URA
ond half of the year, the statement said. It noted, had agreed in principle to the terms of its sales

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 22 04•June•2020