PRESS: BP may acquire 49% in Rosneft’s Kharampurskoye field

MOSCOW, Dec 20 (PRIME) -- British giant BP may acquire 49% in the Kharampurskoye field, one of the largest natural gas assets of Russian oil major Rosneft, and the companies may announce the deal in the near future, Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday citing several sources in the industry.

On Tuesday, the Federal Cartel Office of Germany said that BP was in a process of coordination of acquisition of a stake in Rosneft’s subsidiary Kharampurneftegaz. Currently, Rosneft owns licenses for development of the Kharampurskoye field and of several sites located close to it, but sources told Kommersant that Rosneft is likely to transfer the Kharampurskoye license to Kharampurneftegaz.

The field’s reserves amounted to 975 billion cubic meters of gas and 78 million tonnes of oil under the AB1+B2 category as of the beginning of 2017. But tight Turonian gas reserves account for more than 80% of the field’s gas reserves. Rosneft has a 79% preference to the mineral extraction tax for the reserves, but it has no efficient technology to develop such hard-to-recover reserves.

The field also contains only a small amount of gas condensate, so it is not economically attractive for the company. In 2016, the company produced only 460 million cubic meters of gas and 800,000 tonnes of oil at the field.

The field is not connected to the unified gas supply system of gas giant Gazprom, but Rosneft held tenders for construction of a 9 billion ruble 150-kilometer pipeline branch to the system near the field earlier in 2017.

Sources told Kommersant that BP may acquire the 49% stake for a relatively small payment and would undertake liabilities in investments.

Representatives for Rosneft and BP declined to comment.

(58.6117 rubles – U.S. $1)

End