By ANDREA R. MIHAILESCU Sinopec, Rosneft ink Sakhalin dealChina Petroleum & Chemical Corp. the country's largest refiner, and Russia's Rosneft have secured a shareholder agreement that will govern the Sakhalin-3 oil and gas project, Rosneft said in a statement.
Under the agreement, the two sides will develop the Veninsky field, located off the coast of the Sakhalin Island.Rosneft will hold a 74.9 percent stake in the project, while Sinopec, own the remaining 25.1 percent.
The companies will pursue the project through Venineft, which holds the license for the block and is believed to be holding 169.4 million tons of oil and over 258 billion cubic meters of natural gas.Thus far, Rosneft, which drilled its first well last year, invested $70 million in the field.Last summer, the Chinese sea platform Kantan-3 began drilling an exploration oil well off the Sakhalin coast and discovered promising oil and gas beds on a so-called Yuzhno-Ayashsk formation in the Sea of Okhotsk.
The oil well has been drilled 3,066 meters deep, according to the paper.Sakhalin III reserves are estimated at 800 million tons of oil and over 900 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Russia's Stroytransgaz wins contract to build Saudi pipelineRussia's Stroytransgaz received a tender to build an oil pipeline from state-run Saudi Aramco, the Russian company said in a statement Thursday. The two sides plan to sign an agreement on March 31; the value of the contract was not disclosed.
The 135-mile pipeline will be built from the Shabah oilfield to the town of Abqaiq through the Rub' al-Khali desert along the existing oil pipeline in order to increase the throughput capacity of the country's oil pipeline system.Other bidders at the tender included Italy's Saipem, the Netherlands' Suedrohrbau and an Argentinean unit of international holding Techint Group.Founded in 1990, Stroytransgaz, or Stroitransgaz, is one of the largest engineering companies in Russia's oil and gas industry.
Gazprom weighs building a new gas pipelineGazprom, the world's largest gas company, is considering constructing a new gas pipeline parallel to the incomplete oil pipeline designed to link Eastern Siberia with the Pacific Coast.The future of the project will depend on the government's plans for developing the Eastern Siberian deposits.
Valery Nesterov, an analyst with the Troika Dialog brokerage, was quoted as saying that the new project would reduce expenses due to lower land allocation and infrastructure costs. Nesterov said the new Gazprom pipeline's future would become clear only after the government approves the Eastern gas program, which stipulates 15 regional deposit-development options.
Gazprom and the Economic Development and Trade Ministry reports three scenarios, according to which the new pipe may run parallel to the Eastern Siberian Oil Pipeline, namely, via Taishet and Skovorodino, and with an offshoot into Yakutia, a republic in northeastern Russia.
According to a local report, the part of the joint gas supply network would run parallel to the Eastern Siberian Oil Pipeline.In 2006, the government of Yakutia offered to build a gas pipeline along the Eastern Siberian pipeline. Officials said deposits in Yakutia could yield at least 35 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for the next 50 years. The new pipeline could pump 80 billion cubic meters of gas per year, together with Eastern Siberian casing-head gas and feedstock from the Kovykta deposit in the Irkutsk Region.
Yakut officials said the pipeline could also reach into China, and a gas-liquefaction plant could be built on the Pacific Coast for subsequent export operations.Nesterov said Gazprom is lobbying for a route that would include Western Siberian and Sakhalin deposits under the Altai project. Alpha Bank analyst Dmitry Lukashov said the new pipeline would pump gas from the Kovykta and Chayandinskoye deposits in Eastern Siberia and Yakutia. Under the three scenarios, the deposits are to be developed by 2016-2017.Closing oil prices, Mar. 29, 3 p.m. LondonBrent crude oil: $66.25West Texas Intermediate crude oil: $64.12(Please send comments to AMihailescu@upi.com)Copyright 2007 by UPI
