Page 14 - RusRPTSept21

customers accounted for the largest share of that incremental supply, increasing purchases by over 24% to 107.5 bcm.
There are also suggestions that Gazprom might be contending with a supply crunch of its own, with its production capacity already at full utilisation. The company has not commissioned any major new green fields in Western Siberia since 2018. These leaves the company reliant on its large but mature fields such as Bovanenkovo on the Yamal Peninsula to meet the demand surge.
Gazprom’s next key new project is Kharasaveyskoye, located not far from Bovankenovo. The field is due on stream in 2023 and is expected to flow 32 bcm per year at its first-phase capacity. Development drilling at the site kicked off in June last year.
2.3 Yukos shareholders claim $5bn appeal award from Russia
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has awarded Yukos Capital $5bn in compensation in its case against Russia, including interest and legal costs, RBC business portal reported on July 29 citing an announcement from the shareholders of the dismantled Russian oil giant Yukos.
Reportedly, the case concerns the loans between Yukos Capital and Yukos, and is separate from the over $50bn case being pursued by former shareholders of Yukos, a more than decade-old legal battle followed by bne IntelliNews.
Initially Yukos Capital claimed $13bn in damages in the "second wave" of cases against Russia that followed the first cases in Dutch courts. Yukos Capital claims that loans issued to Yukos and its subsidiaries had not been repaid after the bankruptcy and the liquidation of the private oil major.
Yukos was once Russia’s biggest oil producer and briefly its most valuable company, having accumulated a number of major Siberian oilfields during privatisation deals in the 1990s, including the controversial loans-for-shares scheme. The company’s fortunes changed in 2003, when the government accused it of owing $27bn in back taxes. In October of that year its owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, was arrested on charges of fraud and put in prison.
Moscow is widely seen as having instigated Yukos’ downfall in order to reassert its control over the oil industry. Specifically, the Kremlin objected to Khodorkovsky’s plans to build a privately owned oil pipeline from Siberia to northern China that the state considered the prerogative of the government and foreign policy. Khodorkovsky was also accused of bribing many deputies in the Duma and Federation council to give him influence over the political process.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration of The Hague in 2014 concluded that the Kremlin had staged a co-ordinated attack on Yukos in order to bring its assets
14 RUSSIA Country Report September 2021 www.intellinews.com