Part of its deposits went to TNK-BP

Last Thursday, the oil company TNK-BP announced the acquisition from NK Slavneft, of which it is a shareholder, four enterprises that own licenses for the exploration and production of hydrocarbons in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Yamalo-Nenets and Taimyr Autonomous Okrug. The parties do not disclose the purchase price; the investment companies estimate it at $150 million. We note that Rosneft conducted negotiations with Slavneft on the purchase of two areas included in the Vankor block of fields (Krasnoyarsk Territory). TNK-BP acquired from Slavneft licenses for the Tagulskoye and Suzunskoye oil and gas fields, part of the Vankor block, the Russko-Rechenskoye gas condensate field (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug) and the Payakhskoye oil field (Taimyr Autonomous Okrug). There is no industrial development of these deposits; According to preliminary estimates, their reserves amount to 115 million tons of oil and gas condensate and 117 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

In March, Rosneft President Sergei Bogdanchikov said that the company was completing negotiations on acquiring licenses for the Tagulskoye and Suzunskoye fields from Slavneft (according to Rosneft estimates, their reserves amount to 90 million tons of oil). By that time, Rosneft had become the owner of licenses for the neighboring Vankorskoye and Severo-Vankorskoye fields (estimated reserves are 200 million tons of oil) and hoped to single-handedly develop the Vankor block. Then Rosneft announced that to transport the oil produced at Vankor, an oil pipeline would be built to Dikson (Dolgano-Nenets Autonomous Okrug), and exploration work on it would be completed this year. All oil produced from these fields will be exported. It should be noted that in August Rosneft received ten licenses for exploration of areas located along the oil pipeline; if oil is discovered on them, it will also be included in the company's new export route.

Rosneft’s plans to develop Vankor alone were not destined to come true. According to TNK-BP, it is now the company that owns the licenses for the Tagulskoye and Suzunskoye fields. Thus, Slavneft chose to sell these assets to one of its shareholders (its shares are owned on a parity basis by TNK-BP and NK Sibneft), rather than sell them to an outside company. It should be noted that TNK-BP President Robert Dudley told the Financial Times at the end of September that the company was ready to become a minority shareholder in a single project for the development of oil and gas fields in Eastern Siberia under the leadership of Gazprom and Rosneft. Most of the areas purchased from Slavneft, including those included in the Vankor block, are located there.

The buyer and seller do not disclose the total cost of the four fields sold, but, according to Troika Dialog Investment Company, it is no more than $150 million (the price includes a 50% discount on the cost of reserves due to the fact that the fields require additional exploration and practically do not have the infrastructure necessary for production). One of the companies participating in the deal, Kommersant, stated that this estimate is “somewhat overestimated, but on the whole it corresponds to reality.”

Rosneft and TNK-BP told Kommersant that they will continue cooperation on the development of Vankor, however, according to Kommersant, there are no specific negotiations on how the companies will interact in the region. Let us note that Slavneft shareholders have repeatedly announced that all of the company’s assets will be divided equally over time. Sibneft press secretary Alexey Firsov told Kommersant that this transaction has nothing to do with the division process, since “the sold fields were initially separated into a separate group, intended for sale and did not fit into Sibneft’s production structure at all.”

PETER SAPAZHNIKOV

Kommersant (Krasnoyarsk) No. 204 dated 10.30.2004, p. 12

Vankor did not go to Rosneft