| Rosneft became a partner of TNK-BP in Eastern Siberia Interros finally managed to find a buyer for a 25.94% stake in Verkhnechonskneftegaz, which is developing a large oil field of the same name in the Irkutsk region. It turned out to be the state-owned Rosneft. As a high-ranking employee of TNK-BP told Vremya Novostey, his company, which owns 62.7% of the shares, considered the price offered by Interros (which one, he refused to name) too high and refused the purchase. Rosneft, which also does not name the purchase price, is going to increase its share in this project, and significantly. The second step towards this will be the acquisition from the administration of the Irkutsk region of 11.3% of the shares of Verkhnechonskneftegaz - they, according to Vremya Novostey, have already been arrested at the request of local authorities, who in the spring paid with these securities for the additional issue of shares of the East Siberian Gas Company (by which region and TNK-BP own on a parity basis).
The Verkhnechonskoye field was previously part of the RUSIA Petroleum company along with the Kovykta gas condensate field. However, after TNK-BP began to separate the gas and oil businesses, Verkhnechonskneftegaz was spun off into a separate enterprise with the same ownership structure as RUSIA Petroleum. Interros has been trying to sell its oil and gas assets for four years now, and two years ago, for a blocking stake in RUSIA Petroleum (Verkhnechonskneftegaz was then part of it), it reportedly asked for $500 million. However, TNK-BP understood that, besides it, this No one needs the package at the market price, and therefore tried to bring down the price. Gazprom, which is laying claim to Kovykta, agreed to buy at least a controlling stake in RUSIA, but no one sold it, and the monopolist considered it irrational to spend money on a blocking stake.
It is quite possible that Interros would never have been able to sell its stake in Irkutsk raw materials projects if Rosneft had not seriously taken up the pipeline from Eastern Siberia to the Far East. As they say in the state oil company, Rosneft is looking for sources to fill the pipeline, because in order for the project to be a commercial success, the volume of oil pumped through the pipeline must be 50 million tons per year (plus another 30 million if a branch to China is built) . So far, as experts say, Western Siberia can supply only 26 million tons per year to the oil pipeline. And the deposits of Eastern Siberia are practically undeveloped. Surgutneftegaz is just starting to operate at Talakanskoye in Yakutia, and Verkhnechonskoye is practically not being developed due to the reluctance of some shareholders - Interros and the Irkutsk regional administration - to invest in it.
As TNK-BP says, the recoverable reserves of the Verkhnechonskoye field amount to 201.6 million tons of oil and 95.5 billion cubic meters of gas. Until this year, investment in the project was negligible and hampered by a lack of transport infrastructure. But after the government decided at the end of last year to build a pipeline from Eastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean, this spring TNK-BP decided to invest $270 million in Verkhnechonskneftegaz. However, Interros and the regional authorities did not support this initiative. Vladimir Potanin's company intensified its search for a buyer for its stake, and the Irkutsk administration de facto handed over its stake to the management of TNK-BP and contributed it to the authorized capital of the East Siberian Gas Company.
However, Interros unexpectedly managed to reach an agreement with the head of Rosneft, Sergei Bogdanchikov. And as practice shows, if he takes on a project, then only under the condition of control. Officially, Rosneft does not say whether they are going to increase their stake in Verkhnechonskneftegaz. A Vremya Novostei source close to TNK-BP claims that it was precisely because of Rosneft’s aggressive policy that the administration of the Irkutsk region began to sue for the return of its stake in Verkhnechonskneftegaz from the capital of VSGC. And the recent veto of the new governor Alexander Tishanin on the regional law on the inclusion of Verkhnechonskneftegaz shares in the privatization plan for this year is further confirmation of this (after all, by contributing to the capital of VSGC this stake was actually privatized, but now the situation is completely turning in the opposite direction).
Experts are interested in the question of how much Rosneft will pay for the Interros stake. Troika Dialog analyst Valery Nesterov says that fields in Siberia are now sold at an average price of 10-15 cents per barrel of oil equivalent. Based on this, the Interros stake is worth $60-90 million. However, he adds, Surgutneftegaz got the Talakanskoye field (similar to the Verkhnechonskoye field and located closer to it than others) at a price of 5 cents per barrel of oil equivalent - it turns out , that the Interros stake can be valued at $30 million. However, this was in 2002, he recalls, and since then raw materials have become more expensive. In any case, by the standards of Rosneft, which has recently been operating with billions of dollars, this is a small amount, and taking into account the potential of the field, the purchase generally looks extremely profitable.
TNK-BP, says a source close to the company, will most likely have to negotiate with a new partner and, quite possibly, create some kind of joint venture, where the state company will have the main positions. The minimum that Rosneft can do, in his opinion, is to divide the produced oil in proportion to its share in Vernechonskneftegaz. In addition, of course, much will depend on how Rosneft will invest in the field. But in any case, TNK-BP assures, it is always better to have as a partner a company that is interested in developing the asset.
PHOTO: Vladimir Potanin managed to sell Sergei Bogdanchikov a share in an attractive field Nikolay GORELOV |
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