OREANDA-NEWS. July 16, 2008. Achimgaz, a joint venture of Gazprom and Wintershall Holding AG, has brought into pilot production Block 1A of the Achimov deposits at the Urengoy oil, gas and condensate field in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District.

At present, a comprehensive gas treatment unit and three gas condensate wells securing 2.3 mln cu m of daily production are being operated at the Block. Before the end of 2008, the planned volume of production accounts for 531 mcm of gas and 188.7 thousand t of condensate.

“Today we witness a fundamentally new stage of Gazprom’s resource base and production potential development. For the first time in the Company’s history we, jointly with our German partners, started producing gas from the Achimov deposits – having much more complicated geological structure as compared to the conventional Cenomanian and Valanginian deposits.

Furthermore, it was while establishing Achimgaz when Gazprom first introduced a new concept of cooperation with foreign partners: a joint venture receives profit from the project implementation, at the same time the license for the field is owned by Gazprom. Gazprom applies this concept as a pattern in establishing relations with foreign companies. The result achieved by our joint venture today proves the adequacy of our choice and efficiency of such business model,” stated Alexey Miller, the Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee.

“In 2003 the successful partnership of Gazprom and Wintershall in gas marketing transferred to the production area. Within Achimgaz our know-how and experience supplement each other and optimally fit for the development of the hardly accessible Achimov deposits in Western Siberia: Gazprom deals with hydrocarbon production in the Far North, while Wintershall has a long-term track record in developing complicated geological structures. Such ideal partnership is based on the principle of equal sharing of risks and profits.

Over than 17-year cooperation between BASF/Wintershall and Gazprom in the Achimgaz joint venture has embraced all stages of the value chain: from gas extraction from the well in Siberia, its transmission and distribution to operations within the joint venture on gas marketing and sales to end consumers in Europe,” said Dr. Hans-Ulrich Engel, the Chairman of the Wintershall Holding AG Supervisory Board.