Out of competition

The government gives the Chayandinskoye field to Gazprom

The largest gas field in Eastern Siberia, located in the undistributed fund, goes into the Gazprom portfolio contrary to the law “On Subsoil”. The gas monopolist will receive a license to develop the Chayandinskoye field in Yakutia with gas reserves of about 1.2 trillion cubic meters without competition and for symbolic money.

Gazprom plans to produce gas here no earlier than 2016, and according to more realistic estimates, far after 2020. But the concern was clearly in a hurry to convert the current administrative power into gas resources on its balance sheet as quickly as possible. The position of elected President Dmitry Medvedev played a decisive role in the issue. In early February, he ordered the urgent preparation of a draft government resolution. And now, according to unofficial data, it was Mr. Medvedev’s intervention that forced the Ministry of Natural Resources, which resisted to the last, to retreat.

True, the Minister of Natural Resources, Yuri Trutnev, responded by saying that a competition would be held for the development of blocks of the Sakhalin-3 project (Gazprom also asked them to be transferred to him for use together with Chayanda). According to the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources, as reported by ITAR-TASS, there is a chance that this will happen as early as 2008. “We will also announce about Sakhalin-3, first we will hold a tender for Udokan (the sale of this copper deposit is scheduled for June 11 - Ed. ) and see what results we get,” Mr. Trutnev said.

As is known, in addition to Gazprom, another state company is seriously targeting Sakhalin-3 - Rosneft, which is also the owner of the gas pipeline from Sakhalin to the mainland. Gazprom tried in vain to buy the pipeline from Rosneft all last year, and Mr. Medvedev personally intervened in the negotiation process more than once.

The final decision on Chayanda was made yesterday. At a meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov in the White House, the text of the corresponding government resolution was agreed upon and endorsed. As Deputy Minister of Industry and Energy Andrei Dementyev explained to the press, it should be signed by the prime minister and officially published in the coming days. “We decided: we will transfer it to Gazprom without competition, as provided for by Russian legislation,” the official said. According to him, the concern will pay for a license to develop the field: “According to the current methodology, this is about 8-10 billion rubles. at least." It is easy to calculate that the budget will receive 6-8 rubles from Gazprom for every thousand cubic meters of Chayanda reserves. For example, at the Rosnedra auction for the right to use a much more modest (only 50 billion cubic meters of reserves in categories C1 and C2) Parusovy area on the shelf of the Gulf of Ob, Gazprom had to pay 1.2 billion rubles in the summer of 2006.

By the way, it was after this auction that Gazprom began to lobby for the idea of ​​​​the need to transfer fields to it without any auctions or competitions - as a guarantor of the reliable operation of the gas supply system.

At first, Gazprom’s top managers raised the issue of the need for a non-competitive transfer of fields at parliamentary hearings and various conferences, and in June last year, deputy chairman of the board of the gas monopolist Alexander Ananenkov, at a meeting of the government commission on the fuel and energy complex, addressed then-Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov with an open proposal : give licenses for the Chayandinskoye field and the Kirinsky block on the shelf of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk (Sakhalin-3 project). “We have no other resource base to supply gas in pursuance of intergovernmental agreements,” Mr. Ananenkov said then and received support from the prime minister. “And now we are giving the role of operator into the hands of Gazprom,” Mr. Fradkov replied. “It’s better to do it openly than to push around behind the deposits.”

But the previous government failed to formalize the corresponding decision. Moreover, even a draft corresponding resolution has not appeared. The Ministry of Natural Resources, which oversees the issuance of licenses and was supposed to prepare the documents, has become in strong opposition to the non-competitive transfer of subsoil. Last September, after a long illness, the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, who had not even attended government meetings for a long time, personally came to Mr. Trutnev’s office, but was unable to make progress.

As a result, an alternative plan was implemented, which consisted of withdrawing the right of initiative for the non-competitive transfer of licenses from the Ministry of Natural Resources and transferring it to the Ministry of Industry and Energy, which is more loyal to Gazprom. First, Viktor Khristenko’s department prepared a draft government decree on creating a list of gas fields of federal significance. Its passage through the government was supervised by Dmitry Medvedev’s office, and at the end of November, the new Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov signed the list of 30 fields.

In addition, the authors of the project referred to Article 12 of the Law “On Gas Supply”, according to which “the government of the Russian Federation may, without holding a competition, decide to transfer a gas field of federal significance for operation to an organization that has carried out, at its own expense, the search and exploration of the specified field, an organization -- the owner of the unified gas supply system (UGSS), the organization - the owner of the regional gas supply system, or on holding a competition for the transfer of the specified field into operation.” Thus, the basis for preparing a resolution on Chayanda and the Kirinsky block has appeared. But the bureaucratic process slowed down again.

It was given a new boost by Dmitry Medvedev, who, a month before the presidential elections, went on a Far Eastern tour and at a meeting in Yakutsk publicly ordered to prepare and agree on a government resolution on Chayanda within a month. However, the document again stumbled over the principled position of the Ministry of Natural Resources. Mr. Trutnev’s department insisted that the current law “On Subsoil” does not provide for such a form of issuing a license as transfer by government decision without a competition, and this could create a legal conflict with unpredictable consequences. Therefore, the Ministry of Natural Resources proposed holding at least a competition, which would significantly extend the process over time.

Representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment did not speak to the press yesterday, although it was assumed that there would be a joint statement with the Ministry of Industry and Energy. When asked whether there was a discussion at the meeting, which lasted less than an hour, Mr. Dementyev answered in the spirit that the draft resolution was “agreed upon and endorsed by all interested ministries and departments.” And the decision was made within the framework of the law “On Gas Supply”.

True, the Chayandinskoye field is located in a region where there is no unified Gazprom gas supply system. Moreover, local gas pipelines, which could be considered such, belong to the former Yukos subsidiary Sakhaneftegaz, whose ownership structure is now extremely confusing. However, by order of the Ministry of Industry and Energy, a program for creating a gas production, transportation and sales system in Eastern Siberia and the Far East was approved, the coordinator of which was Gazprom. However, the timing and prospects for the implementation of this project are still vague. According to Mr. Dementyev, the launch of production at Chayanda is planned for 2016. Which looks doubtful, since Gazprom will soon become the owner of the largest gas field in Eastern Siberia - Kovyktinskoye (in the Irkutsk region), which is much better prepared for exploitation, and therefore there seems to be no strong need to invest huge resources in the Yakut section.

Alexey GRIVACHS, Vera KUZNETSOVA