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Gazprom gives up Shtokman

The Shtokman was supposed to become the Arctic jewel of Gazprom, Total and Statoil. Photo: Shtokman.ru

The development of the field, which has been Gazprom’s top priority for a number of years, has been postponed indefinitely.

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Speaking at the ONS conference in Stavanger, Norway, on Wednesday, Gazprom Board Member, Vsevolod Cherepanov confirmed that the development costs will be too high for the project to be developed at the current stage.

“The development of the project is postponed to better times”, he said, RIA Novosti reports.

“All parties have come to the conclusion that the financing is to high to be able to do it for the time being,” he is quoted by Reuters.

At the same time, the Gazprom official confirmed that “new data” is being collected and that the company and its partners should not take “hasty decisions”.

At the same time, Norwegian Statoil informs that it has still has belief in the giant Arctic project. “We still believe it is possible to develop the field in the future with new technology available, company spokesman Bård Glad Pedersen says to E24.no

The Norwegian company had a 24 percent stake in operator company Shtokman Development AG, but this summer handed in its stake as the shareholder agreement expired.

According to newspaper Kommersant, French Shtokman partner Total (25%) has had a veto on technical development solutions for the project, which reportedly is one of the reasons why the project has been postponed.

Shtokman has been called “mother of all gas fields”. It is located in the Barents Sea about 600 km north of Murmansk and holds 3,9 trillion cubic meters of gas.