Chief Financial Officer Andrey Kruglov says Gazprom’s draft investment program of 920.44 billion rubles remains unchanged, reports Oil and Gas Journal.
- We have also been prioritizing projects in our investment program … and this will allow us to see which projects will be financed and which projects are going ahead, Kruglov added according to The Moscow Times.
Key projects will go ahead as planned, however, including developments in the Yamal Peninsula and the Shtokman field, one of the largest gas fields in the world, which Gazprom is developing with France’s Total and Norway’s StatoilHydro.
There have been speculations that the global financial crises will force the Shtokman partners to delay the project. But Gazprom pledges no delay on Shtokman.
- The investment decision will be made in the first quarter of 2010, says Alexander Medvedev, deputy chief executive, according to The Moscow Times.
Shtokman is scheduled to start producing gas for export by pipeline in 2013 and as liquefied natural gas in 2014, according to a company presentation.
Medvedev added that, unusual for an oil and gas project, the Shtokman partners would incur considerable costs in advance of the decision on whether to proceed.
Another major Gazprom projects still on the priority list include the gas-pipeline from Murmansk to Volkhov, a project linking the Shtokman gas to the North Stream pipeline.
The new North Stream gas pipeline is very important in terms of meeting the increasing natural gas demand in the European gas market. Gas imports to the EU countries are anticipated to grow in the nearest decade by nearly 200 bcm, or more than 50 per cent, writes Gazprom at the company’s web-page.
