CJSC Rospan International, a TNK-BP Group company, holds licenses to develop two gas and condensate fields, Vostochno-Urengoiskoe and Novo-Urengoiskoe, in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. The estimated reserves are 891 billion cubic meters or bcm, of gas and 133 million tons of gas condensate.

Rospan International was established in 1994. TNK acquired a 44 percent equity in 2002, and became 100 percent owner of Rospan in 2004.

"The development of the unique resources of the Urengoiskoe field plays a key role in the implementation of TNK-BP's gas strategy. In 2013, the project will commission 11 more wells, which will help to maintain the achieved gas production levels and lay foundation for future production growth," said Alexander Sleptsov, Acting General Director, Rospan.

The company added that Rospan will produce 16 bcm of gas by 2020. Preliminary estimates suggest that the company has produced 3.5 bcm of gas in 2012, with the cumulative gas production of Rospan amounting to 30 bcm.

TNK-BP noted that the more than $7 billion investment will be made for the first development phase that includes drilling and construction of 276 new development wells and the construction of a gas and condensate treatment unit, export pipelines and a railroad loading terminal at the station of Korotchaevo.

TNK-BP, the third largest oil company in Russia, is a 50:50 joint venture formed in 2003 by merging the Russian oil and gas assets of British energy giant BP plc and the oil and gas assets of Alfa-Access-Renova or AAR, a consortium consisting of a group of four Russian billionaire oligarchs. BP invested $8 billion for the stake in 2003, and has earned $19 billion in dividends since then from the venture.

Both BP and AAR have in December agreed to sell their respective stakes in TNK-BP to Rosneft for a total consideration of about $55 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2013. Meanwhile, BP will continue hold a 19.8 percent stake in Rosneft even after the deal.

BP announced plans to quit the joint venture in early June amid long-running disputes between the two partners over the company's management and control. The matters worsened after AAR blocked a strategic partnership in May 2011 between Rosneft and BP to jointly develop Russia's Arctic shelf amid legal challenges from AAR in the international courts.