PRESS: Vankor fields to get MET refund if oil price exceeds $42.4

MOSCOW, Nov 8 (PRIME) -- The Russian government will only offer a mineral extraction tax (MET) deduction for oil major Rosneft for the Vankor cluster if the oil price exceeds U.S. $42.4 per barrel of Urals, the state budget reserve threshold, business daily Kommersant reported on Friday, citing minutes of a meeting of deputy prime ministers.

Vostok Oil, a joint project of Rosneft and Eduard Khudainatov’s Neftegazholding, comprises the largest fields of the Vankor cluster – the Vankor, Suzunskoye, Tagulskoye, and Lodochnoye, as well as the promising oil sites in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Region such as the Payakha group of fields owned by Neftegazholding, and the Zapadno-Irkinsky block. It may also include the Baikalovsky block of Yermak Neftegaz, a joint venture between Rosneft and BP.

Rosneft earlier asked for 2.6 trillion rubles of incentives to finance construction of a pipeline between Payakha and Vankor, a port terminal and tankers to carry oil from Vostok Oil.

Sources told Kommersant that Rosneft would not be able to finance construction of a pipeline from Vankor to the north of the peninsula to carry oil by the Northeast Passage unless it starts development of the Payakha group. According to earlier media reports, the Payakha development profitability is doubtful.

(63.7298 rubles – U.S. $1)

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