ruben.maritime

MOSCOW 14 December – Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas giant, is to acquire shareholding control of the Sakhalin-2 gas and LNG project from Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, following the resumption last week of negotiations with Shell. The outcome has been widely reported, but the terms are still under negotiation, according to Dmitri Medvedev, chief of the Kremlin staff and chairman of the Gazprom board. Russian reports suggest that Gazprom will not pay cash up front. Instead, it will reportedly defer payment for its stake until the project starts operation, and cash is generated from LNG shipments and sales. This suggests that the takeover will oblige Shell to accept an audit of its actual project costs, instead of its estimated $22Bn in capital expenditure; and that the income that would otherwise have flowed to Shell under the old production sharing agreement will be diverted to Gazprom, and then paid to Shell for shares. Neither side is keen to acknowledge publicly what price has been tabled. This was clearly one of the sticking-points when Russian energy minister Victor Khristenko said early this week that the talks were “difficult”.

Etiquetas: gas, international maritime affairs, shipping business

This entry was posted on viernes, diciembre 15, 2006 at 7:44 a. m.. You can skip to the end and leave a response.