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Gazprom Neft expands Repsol joint venture


Spain’s Repsol has agreed to expand work in Russia under a joint venture with Russia’s Gazprom Neft to explore the geological potential of a West Siberian block adjacent to the areas where the energy companies already co-operate.

The tie up expands a 2017 joint venture to explore and develop five oil blocks in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region that saw Russia’s third-largest crude oil producer take a 25 per cent stake in Repsol’s Evrotek-Yugra project.

Under the new agreement the two companies have acquired ASB Geo, which holds the exploration license to a block adjacent to five blocks that the joint venture already controls in the Karabashsky zone of Khanty-Mansi, one of Russia’s richest in hydrocarbons reserves.

Gazprom Neft alone holds additional licenses to explore six neighbouring blocks since winning an auction in April.

The deal is the latest in a string of agreements with European oil and gas companies despite western sanctions against Russia’s energy sector introduced in 2014.

While Russian companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft have on the whole shrugged off the impact of the sanctions, divergence between the EU and US sanctions has resulted in American companies withdrawing more significantly from Russia than their European counterparts.

Companies such as France’s Total and Italy’s Eni have continued to engage in major drilling and exploration projects alongside Russian partners.

“The acquisition of the rights for the Karabashsky zone license area is one more step forward in the development of our partnership with Repsol as part of the memorandum of understanding signed earlier and defining key co-operation directions in exploring the areas adjacent to Evrotek-Yugra,” Gazprom Neft’s deputy chief executive, Vadim Yakovlev, said.

“Joining Gazprom Neft and Repsol’s knowledge, experience and resources is to raise the efficiency of the works aimed at unleashing the resource potential of this little-explored part of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region.”

Gazprom Neft said its investment in the joint venture would be about Rbs2.5bn, or $36mn, by the end of 2019.

The Ouryinskoye field, which is covered by the joint venture, has recoverable reserves of 33.8 million tonnes of oil.



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