Report: Gazprom, Total in Gas Field Deal

MOSCOW – Russian natural gas monopoly OAO Gazprom said it has chosen France’s Total SA as a partner to develop the giant Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Total would receive a 25 percent stake in an operating company to be created to implement the project, and that another foreign partner could be selected in the future. In a statement, he said Gazprom would retain 100 percent control of the separate company that owns the license to the field.

Pipeline deliveries from the field, which holds an estimated 3.7 trillion cubic meters of gas, would begin in 2013 and the project would produce its first liquefied natural gas in 2014, Miller said in the statement.

“The agreement that has been reached is the latest important step in developing mutually beneficial cooperation and partnership relations between Gazprom and the world’s biggest energy companies,” he said.

In addition to Total, OAO Gazprom had been in talks on Shtokman with Norway’s Statoil ASA and Norsk Hydro ASA, and U.S.-based ConocoPhillips.

Gazprom had said Monday that it was close to a deal offering foreigners a role in tapping the field, marking an apparent policy shift. In October, it had suggested that foreign companies would only be welcome as contractors.

That announcement came amid cooling relations between Russia and the United States, in part over concerns that President Vladimir Putin is backtracking on democracy. A simultaneous decision to shift the focus of the Shtokman project from liquefied natural gas that could be shipped to the United States, among other destinations, to providing gas for a planned pipeline to Europe, was seen as evidence of the political tension.

Analysts have said Gazprom’s limited experience with liquefied natural gas, coupled with the harsh environmental conditions, mean that the technologies and expertise foreign companies can bring to the project are key to its success.