TNK-BP and the Irkutsk Regional Administration Sign the Founding Agreement for East Siberian Gas Company
05 Mar 2004
Irkutsk Region Governor Boris Govorin and Mr. Victor Vekselberg, Managing Director, Production and Technologies, of TNK-BP OJSC, concluded the founding agreement to establish East Siberian Gas Company OJSC (ESGC) in Irkutsk on March 4. As the joint news release of TNK-BP and the Irkutsk Regional Administration goes, the founded company will be involved in implementing the project for gas supplies and gasification of the region on the basis of the Kovykta gas and condensate field. The regional gas project based on the Kovykta deposit is an independent project, does not depend on terms and conditions of implementing the international gas project and may be carried out in a short term, ensuring, in the essence, pilot try-out for Kovykta's natural gas extraction and transportation technologies, the announcement goes. Implementing the project will be the first stage in creating the mineral and technological basis that would enable to gasify enterprises of the chemical, power, and utilities industries. The project differs from the earlier proposed one by the fact that gas from the Kovykta gas and condensate field would arrive to the Sayansk industrial site where a gas-separation plant, which would separate valuable fractions used as raw materials in polymer chemistry, is planned to be constructed. After gas separation, methane would be supplied to Angarsk for ammonia production, for expanding nitric fertilizer and butyl spirit production and as fuel at Angarsk Petrochemical Company and the polymer works, and then it will be delivered to Irkutsk. The project is aimed at ensuring gas supplies of 300 million cubic meters (cm) in 2006 and boosting them to 2.2 billion cm in 2009. The project implementation plan envisages to draft the investment feasibility study by this June, and to finalize the feasibility study in 1Q 2005. Drafting technical documents is to begin in 3Q 2004. Creating the basis for production facilities' construction is scheduled to commence in autumn 2004. Capital expenditures on the project's implementation will come to USD 650 million in the period from 2004 to 2009. By 2010, annual tax revenues from the project's implementation are estimated at RUR 1.7 billion, including RUR 350 million to the regional budget and RUR 300 million to local budgets. According to Mr. Vekselberg, engaging potential consumers of Kovykta's gas as investors is quite possible. The largest gas consumers in the region by 2010 will be as follows (forecast): Angarsk Petrochemical Company (ANHC) and Angarsk Polymer Works (865 million cm), Nitrogen and Fertilizer Works (314 million cm), Sayanskkhimplast (300 million cm), Khimpromusolje (203 million cm), Angarsktsement and Angarsk Ceramics Works (193 million cm), Sibsol (145 cm), AEKhK (145 million cm), Irkutskteploenergo (142 million cm), NPK Irkut (109 million cm), which totals to 2568 million cm. INTERFAX
|
