Offshore staff
STAVANGER, Norway – Statoil (OSE:STL, NYSE:STO) has returned its shares in the Shtokman Development AG (SDAG) venture to Gazprom.
The company took this decision following the failure to agree on a solution for theShtokman gas/condensate development in the Barents Sea.
Statoil says it remains hopeful a solution will be found that still allows it to participate in the project, but technical and commercial challenges must be resolved before it will makes a final investment decision.
The company’s CEO Helge Lund, and Senior Vice President for the Europe and Asia Business Cluster Torgeir Kydland both left the board of the joint venture.
Kydland said: “We need a commercial concept to justify the large investment. We have a broad and strong portfolio of projects worldwide competing for investments, and Shtokman is competing on the same level as other projects.”
The investment decision has been postponed repeatedly due to an impasse on framework conditions, high investment costs, and uncertain profitability. At the same time, discovery of large reserves elsewhere have impacted the project’s prospects.
“Our cooperation with the Russian authorities is good,” Kydland maintained, “and in May we signed acooperation agreement with the Russian company Rosneft. We have come to Russia to stay, and if it is possible to find a common commercial solution for Shtokman we are still interested in joining the project…
“We have made progress. For example, we have found out that we can use the technology we have developed on the Snøhvit field to reduce costs. Russia has also taken steps towards preparing better framework conditions for offshore developments, but we still have some work ahead of us before we can sign any new agreement.”
Total is the remaining non-Russian partner in SDAG.
8/09/2012
