Another Shtokman-delay in the pipeline
The partners in the giant development project of the Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea might postpone a final investment decision with another couple of months.
The final investment decision has already been postponed several times, the last announcement from the partners said a decision would be made in March 2012. But now sources close to Gazprom say that the partners probably will not come to any conclusion until this summer, Moscow News reports.
Head of two of the project partners, Gazprom’s Aleksey Miller and Total’s Christophe de Margerie, recently met in St. Petersburg to discuss preparations for the investment decision.
What has hampered the final investment decision most from the foreign partners’ side is Russian tax policy. Statoil wants significant fiscal relief for the Shtokman project in the form of discounted rates of mineral extraction tax and gas export duty. “The project as it is today is not commercially viable, said Head of Statoil in Russia, Jan Helge Skogen”, as BarentsObserver reported.
In November 2011 RBK Daily wrote that the Russian government before the end of the year would present a comprehensive package of tax breaks and other benefits for the companies operating on the Arctic shelf. So far, there has been no official information on the contents of this tax program.
