PRESS: Rosneft, Neftegazholding may set up JV in Taimyr

MOSCOW, Mar 19 (PRIME) -- Russian oil major Rosneft and Neftegazholding, owned by Rosneft’s former CEO Eduard Khudainatov, may set up a joint venture to develop oil fields of the Taimyr Peninsula, Kommersant business daily reported on Tuesday citing sources.

Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin reportedly asked Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to order the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to initiate an auction on Taimyr’s Zapadno-Irkinsky license area with reserves of 500 million tonnes in oil equivalent. The main condition of the auction will be transportation of all the oil produced at the field by the Northern Sea Route, the sources said.

The Zapadno-Irkinsky area neighbors Neftegazholding’s Payakhsky group of fields so the projects may use a joint infrastructure. That is why Kommersant’s sources assume that the companies may establish a joint venture to develop them.

In February, Kommersant said that Rosneft and Neftegazholding planned to ship 20 million tonnes of oil by a pipeline to the Taymyr Peninsula by 2024, of which part would be shipped by tankers eastwards across the Bering Strait.

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