UPDATE 2: Russia’s Gazprom, OMV sign binding deal on asset swap

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VIENNA/MOSCOW, Dec 14 (PRIME) -- Russian gas giant Gazprom and Austria’s OMV signed a binding agreement to swap their assets on Wednesday.

Under the deal, OMV will receive a 24.98% stake in a project for development of two fields of Achimov deposits of the Urengoiskoye field. In exchange, Gazprom will receive a 38.5% stake in Norway’s OMV Norge AS.

The deal does not envisage any cash payments except for potential payments for closing the deal.

The agreement will come into force on January 1, 2017. The signing of the final documents is expected in mid-2017.

OMV CEO Rainer Seele said that OMV will prepare documents to close the deal until the end of 2017.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that the deal must be approved by authorities of Russia and Norway. “This will be done in the nearest future,” he said when asked when Gazprom and OMV plan to receive all permits necessary to close the deal.

Miller said that the Norwegian asset which Gazprom will receive is interesting to it from the technological point of view, specifying that he means “the technology of shelf work, and we all know well that hydrocarbon development on a shelf, and in particular, on the shelf of the Russian Federation, will increase and this is very interesting to Gazprom. ”

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