Gazprom has on numerous occasions stressed that it will not postpone the launch of the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea. Gas production is to start in 2013 and the Shtokman LNG plant is to be ready by 2014, the company has maintained.
As BarentsObserver reported yesterday, the crisis-ridden gas company now vaguely confirms what independent experts have long ago concluded: it will not be possible to launch the project – one of the biggest offshore gas fields in the world – in 2013.
That information comes only one month after Gazprom confirmed that the company’s other top priority project, the Bovenenkovo field in Yamal, will be delayed with one year and only few days after Gazprom’s board of directors cut the company’s 2009 investment programme with more than 200 billion RUB.
Gazprom in a memorandum in connection with the issuing of Eurobond confirms that the delay is possible because of “the situation in the gas market”, newspaper Vedomosti reports. That is however only part of the picture. Gazprom’s exports have dropped dramatically over the last months, resulting in a sharp drop in revenues.
However, it would hardly be possible to meet the 2013 deadline even without the financial crisis. The Shtokman field is a technologically unprecedented project for the offshore industry. Challenges are abundant both with regard to technology and money. It took Norwegian Statoil more than five years to complete the Snøhvit gas field, also that located in the climatically challenging Barents Sea. It would be close to a sensation if Gazprom, which is inexperienced within the offshore industry, managed to develop its Shtokman field quicker. Even in partnership with Total and StatoilHydro.
As reported by BarentsObserver, the Shtokman Development AG is in the process of announcing the main Shtokman contract tenders. The project’s final financial decision is scheduled to early 2010. Many of the project processes are likely to continue at full speed despite this week’s announcement. After all, a delay of a year or two would still mean major time pressure in the huge Arctic project.
