PRESS: Antitrust passes approval of Arctic deal with Total to govt

MOSCOW, Feb 25 (PRIME) -- The Federal Antimonopoly Service has passed the authority of approving France’s Total acquisition of 10% in the liquefied natural gas project Arctic LNG-2 of Russia’s Novatek to the government’s commission on foreign investment control, Kommersant business daily reported on Monday.

“They just need to submit a request under Federal Law 57, and the issue will be considered by the government’s commission in a swift and benevolent manner, maybe even through an absentee vote. The government supports the deal in general,” Kommersant reported quoting the service’s representative Irina Kashunina.

The Arctic LNG-2 owns license for development of the federal importance field Utrenneye, which makes an approval of the government’s commission of any deal of a foreign investor acquiring 25% or more in the field necessary. Taking into account Total’s 19.4% stake in Novatek, acquisition of 10% in the Arctic LNG-2 will grant indirect ownership of more than 25% in the company and in the field to Total, Kashunina told the business daily.

A Novatek representative said that the company still planned to close the deal until the end of March. Sources told Kommersant that in this case then Novatek and Total would have to solve the problem with the antitrust watchdog already this week.

The Arctic LNG-2 plant will be launched in 2022–2025 with the fields of the Gydan Peninsula in the north of West Siberia becoming its resource base. The facility is to produce 19.8 million tonnes of LNG per year.

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