Russ Oil-Gas

May 15, 2009 - (Bloomberg by Torrey Clark and Stephen Bierman) - OAO Gazprom, the world’s largest natural gas producer, is ready to buy all the gas from the second stage of an offshore Azeri development slated as a resource base for the Europe-backed Nabucco pipeline project. “We’re ready to buy the whole volume of Shah Deniz II,” Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alexander Medvedev said in a Moscow interview with Bloomberg Television today. Gazprom’s network is the “optimal” route for gas from Azerbaijan to reach Europe, Medvedev said. Russia’s gas exporter is due to sign accords today on building the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea to the European Union with Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia at an event attended by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Azerbaijan lacks a direct gas link to Europe and has been unable to agree with Turkey on terms for the transit of larger planned volumes. State-run Gazprom’s purchases of Azeri fuel could undermine the supply base for European-supported pipeline projects, such as Nabucco, designed to diversify supply routes away from Russia. Shah Deniz is the only deposit mature enough currently to be considered as a base for forming contracts for Nabucco, Olav Skalmeraas, a StatoilHydro ASA vice president for natural gas, said in Baku last month. The Norwegian company oversees the marketing of fuel from Shah Deniz II.
Eni Agreement: Gazprom’s agreement with its main South Stream partner, Eni SpA, won’t limit where the Italian company will be able to sell gas, Medvedev said. If the link carries volumes of 47 billion cubic meters of gas a year, Eni will be able to sell 12 billion cubic meters, he said. “We are entering a new stage of the project realization and on the corporate level we will accelerate the preparation of the feasibility study then the comprehensive feasibility and then the fifth stage begins,” Medvedev said, adding that Gazprom has enough gas for South Stream without Azeri fuel. The second phase of Shah Deniz could add 12 billion to 14 billion cubic meters of annual gas output in three to five years once a market is found and transit for the fuel ensured, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said on April 18. In 2007, Azerbaijan produced 10.3 billion cubic meters, according to BP Plc’s Statistical Review of World Energy. The State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan, or Socar, plans to meet Gazprom this month to negotiate a deal to begin selling gas to Russia beginning next year, Vagif Aliyev, general manager of Socar’s investment division, said in April. Socar’s partners in the Shah Deniz, including StatoilHydro ASA, BP and OAO Lukoil among, are not participating in these negotiations, he said. Gazprom’s production and exports will probably fall 10 percent this year to 495 billion cubic meters and 150 billion cubic meters respectively, Medvedev said. Average prices during the year will be less than $300 per 1,000 cubic meters, he said.