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Publish date: February 15, 2006
News
According to Total’s president of exploration and production Christophe de Margerie, foreign companies would be allowed an aggregated 49% stake in the project, since Gazprom held the 51% majority stake. The official said the company could seek a 25% stake if Gazprom chose only two partners instead of three, but a 20% stake seemed more realistic. He refused to disclose the company’s upstream and downstream assets for the project, adding that Total plans to be involved in the production and sale of liquefied natural gas.
According to de Margerie, some issues have yet to be coordinated, including the assessment of existing upstream assets proposed by the French company, and those that are being prepared for the project, which is set to start in 2008. Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom is currently selecting partners for the Shtokman project, RIA Novosti reported. The shortlist includes Norway’s Statoil and Hydro, France’s Total and U.S. companies Chevron and ConocoPhillips.
The Shtokman deposit is located in the Barents Sea, 650km from the Russian northern port of Murmansk. It contains an estimated 3.2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 31 million metric tons of gas condensate. Gazprom officials estimate its annual output at 100 billion cubic meters of gas, with around 30 billion at the very start, of which 22 to 24 billion cu m will be liquefied to produce up to 15 million tons of LNG for America.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.