Gazprom hints it might share Yamal gas with Novatek

By Atle Staalesen, The Independent Barents Observer May 9, 2017
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Russia’s Tambey fields hold an estimated 6.7 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and could be developed by a joint venture, Gazprom leader Aleksey Miller tells Vladimir Putin.

In a meeting in the Kremlin this week, Miller confirmed that Gazprom has conducted a comprehensive mapping of its Tambey group of fields in Yamal, the gas-rich peninsula stretching into the Kara Sea.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) and Russian state gas company Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller attend a meeting with Austrian oil and gas group OMV Chief Executive Officer Rainer Seele (not pictured) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia April 28, 2017. (Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters)
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) and Russian state gas company Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller attend a meeting with Austrian oil and gas group OMV Chief Executive Officer Rainer Seele (not pictured) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia April 28, 2017. (Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters)

A total of 2,650 kilometers of 3D seismic mapping has been conducted in the area and 14 exploration wells have been drilled.

“Gazprom is ready to look at possibilities to establish joint ventures, of course first of all with Russian companies with competence in the field of LNG,” Miller told Putin, according to a transcript from the Kremlin.

The state gas company has over the last months been under mounting pressure from Novatek, the country’s second biggest gas producer, to share its Tambey resources.

According to newspaper RBC, Novatek majority owner Leonid Mikhelson in late 2016 requested President Putin for his support for the acquisition of four Tambey licenses currently controlled by Gazprom.

Putin subsequently requested Minister of Energy Aleksandr Novak to “assess Novatek’s letter on the adoption of necessary corporate decisions to transfer the licenses.” The licenses should first be transferred to a separate company and subsequently acquired by Novatek, the letter suggests.

Source in the Ministry of Energy later confirmed that negotiations between Novatek and Gazprom are being held.

Novatek requests licenses to the North-Tambey, West-Tambey, Malyginsky and Tasiyskt fields, all of them obtained by Gazprom in year 2008.

Novatek wants access the gas resources in connection with its grand plans for development of LNG in the Yamal Peninsula. The company will this year open its Yamal LNG plant and a second project, the Arctic LNG-2, is in the pipeline.