Norway`s StatoilHydro will participate in developing Russia`s massive Shtokman gas field alongside Total of France, the Kremlin said Thursday.
The Kremlin said that President Vladimir Putin and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg had spoken by phone and discussed the achievement of an "agreement on the participation of the Norwegian company StatoilHydro in the development of the Shtokman gas field."
In Oslo StatoilHydro said that the deal, to be signed on Thursday, would give it a 24 percent stake in the vast gas field project off the coast of northern Russia in the Barents Sea.
Along with Total, StatoilHydro will work with Russia`s state-owned gas giant Gazprom, which controls a 51-percent stake of the project.
Production at the technically challenging site is scheduled to start in 2013.
Total was awarded 25 percent earlier this year following talks between Putin and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Thursday`s announcements suggested that the US companies Chevron and ConocoPhillips, which had previously applied to participate, were out of the running.
Shtokman, believed to be the biggest undeveloped gas field in the world, is estimated to hold 3.7 trillion cubic metres of gas and the cost of the project is around 20 billion dollars (14.7 billion euros).
sections: Economics, World News |