06-04-04 Surgutneftegaz, Russia's fourth-largest oil producer, will invite state-owned Gazprom and Rosneft to help it develop a $ 3 bn oil field in east Siberia after supplanting Yukos as the site's developer.
Surgutneftegaz said it agreed to buy oil exploration assets from Yukos Sakhaneftegaz, including its Lenaneftegaz subsidiary, which is exploring the Talakan field and its estimated 2.3 bn barrels of oil reserves. The $ 3 bn needed would pay for acquiring the field, exploring for and extracting oil and to link the Talakan to a planned pipeline to Nakhodka.

Surgutneftegaz, Rosneft and Gazprom last year said they would cooperate to exploit eastern energy resources, two months after former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested in October. Russia, which extracts most of its oil in west Siberia for sale to Europe, is seeking to tap fields in the country's east and export fuel to meet growing demand in Asia and the United States
In eastern Siberia, "we will make new discoveries as there are other oil fields in the region," Surgutneftegaz CEO Vladimir Bogdanov said. Bogdanov also said that Surgutneftegaz had invited Marathon Oil, the fourth-largest US oil company, and Shell, Europe's second-largest oil company, to form joint ventures to develop oil fields in western Siberia.

Shell and Marathon both confirmed they had held talks with Surgutneftegaz, but neither would say if they had responded to the offer. Surgutneftegaz has been encouraged by government statements that indicate the country may decide to build an oil pipeline to Nakhodka on the Pacific coast to sell fuel to Japan, rather than a link to Daqing in China, Bogdanov said. Surgutneftegaz has committed to invest $ 185 mm in Talakan to date, Bogdanov said. That includes a $ 61 mm payment to the government that the company promised in its bid for the Talakan field.
Surgutneftegaz lost that bid to Sakhaneftegaz, which was later acquired by Yukos. Surgutneftegaz was later awarded the Talakan license after the Yukos unit's exploration license lapsed.

Bogdanov declined to say how much of the remaining $ 124 mm in investment pledged would go to buy Talakan assets from Yukos.
"The agreements will allow Surgutneftegaz to start full development" in the Yakutia region, where the field is based, Surgutneftegaz and Yukos said. Surgutneftegaz may face a lawsuit from the government contesting the company's rights to Talakan, citing Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev.
"Legally there is no possibility to withdraw the license from us," Bogdanov said. "If it happens that would be bad for the region."