For students about Kovykta

Viktor Vekselberg is “conducting a dialogue” about the fate of his main gas field

There is a month left before the expiration of Rosnedra’s “ultimatum” to the owner of the rights to develop the Kovykta gas field in the Irkutsk region to eliminate violations of the license agreement. Despite the fact that it is impossible to fulfill the requirement to produce 9.6 billion cubic meters of gas at the end of last year, and even this year, consumers in the region are simply not able to consume that much, Executive Director of TNK-BP (the main shareholder of the project operator) Viktor Vekselberg demonstrates optimism. Yesterday he arrived in the Irkutsk region and during his visit, as Interfax reports, he met with students of Irkutsk State University. “We are conducting a dialogue about when and on what scale the development of Kovykta will be carried out,” he told the students. - Opinions are divided. The final decision on Kovykta will be made by the government in the near future when considering the program for the development of the gas industry in Eastern Siberia and the Far East.” According to him, when the program is adopted, the main terms and format for field development will be outlined.

At the same time, it is no secret to anyone that the fate of the field depends not on the program that Gazprom has been writing for many years in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry and Energy, but on negotiations between the management of the gas monopoly and the shareholders of TNK-BP. After Mr. Vekselberg failed to get the Ministry of Natural Resources to amend the physically impossible license agreement at the end of last year, the concern decided that Kovykta would not go anywhere, because Gazprom’s main subject of interest, it is believed, remains share in TNK-BP.

As you know, on February 9, the Rosnedra commission identified violations in the implementation of the license agreement at the Kovyktinskoye field and gave the company a three-month period to eliminate them. Moreover, even then, officials said that allocating additional time to TNK-BP would not help anyway, since the violations were “irreparable in advance,” which means that in three months the license for Kovykta from RUSIA Petroleum would be revoked. Attempts by TNK-BP to transfer the discussion about the conditions for developing the field to the government level failed. The government is waiting for the introduction of a comprehensive program for creating a unified gas supply system in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. The order was given to the Ministry of Industry and Energy in 2003. The text itself was prepared at Gazprom and is now stuck at the stage of approvals between the monopoly and the department of Viktor Khristenko. Gazprom told Vremya Novostey that work on the text of the program continues.

In mid-May, the territorial bodies of Rosprirodnadzor should organize a repeat inspection of the execution of the license for the development of Kovykta with a visit to the field. Based on its results, inspectors must draw up a report in which they must indicate whether the company has complied with the Rosnedra order. Thus, the decision on the recall could take place at the end of May.

However, as the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Yuri Trutnev, said this week, in the event of a change in the owner of an abstract license that is not being implemented, his department is ready to enter into the position of new subsoil users and give a certain period for eliminating violations . True, he refused to say whether this rule would affect the Kovyktinskoye field. However, as practice shows, Rosnedra, whose commission decides to revoke licenses, often listened to the requests of the new owners. At the beginning of this year, for example, the recall commission made a concession to LUKOIL and did not punish the company for the lag in drilling volumes at the fields purchased last year from the American Marathon.

Anna GORSHKOVA, Alexey GRIVACHS