Russian energy giants Lukoil and Gazprom Neft will form a joint venture (JV) to develop a significant oil and gas cluster in the Nadym-Pur-Tazovsky region of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district in Russia.

The JV will be headquartered at Meretoyakhaneftegaz, a subsidiary of Gazprom Neft.

The Tazovskoye oil and gas condensate field, which began production in June 2021, will be at the core of the new production area.

The Lukoil and Gazprom Neft JV will also develop the Severo-Samburgskoye and Meretoyakhinskoye fields and a couple of Zapadno-Yubileiny license blocks.

According to Lukoil, the areas are presently going through additional appraisal and pilot works. Based on this, a development strategy for the oil and gas cluster will be developed.

Lukoil said that the total reserves in place at the new cluster are initially estimated at more than a billion tonnes of oil and nearly 500 bcm of gas.

A significant part of the reserves initially in place are contained within the Achimov Formation and are categorized as hard-to-recover reserves.

Alexander Dyukov — CEO of Gazprom Neft said: “Developing those fields covered by our joint venture with Lukoil is a critical task – for our entire industry.

“This joint venture, bringing together our financial and technological resources, will see us working on developing hard-to-recover reserves, including producing oil from Achimovsky strata. This, in turn, will create new jobs – and extra tax revenues – at every level, as well as facilitating further technological development, for both our company and the entire wider ecosystem of contractors and equipment producers.”

Meretoyakhaneftegaz happens to be the first asset to be managed on a 50:50 basis by Lukoil and Gazprom Neft. In the coming few months, the Russian energy companies will look to come up with detailed binding documents for forming the JV, and also for securing all the required corporate and regulatory approvals.

Lukoil and Gazprom Neft will also explore further opportunities to extend their cooperation on various lucrative projects in their operating regions in Russia.

Vagit Alekperov — President of Lukoil said: “Gazprom and Gazprom Neft have been our strategic partners for many years. Together, we can combine the best Russian technologies to develop this new massive hydrocarbon cluster in the region we consider strategic – the Yamal-Nenets region.

“Its development will ensure additional hydrocarbons output, extra tax revenues to Russian budget, and have a multiplier effect for related industries.”

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