OREANDA-NEWS. October 22, 2010. Gazprom Neft has been appointed Project Leader for the Junin-6 project in the heavy oil basin of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. The resolution on the appointment was passed by the Board of Directors of OOO National Oil Consortium (NNK) established by five major Russian oil companies Gazprom Neft, LUKOIL, Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and TNK-BP holding equal stakes in the project.

In its capacity as Project Leader, Gazprom Neft will coordinate the operations of a Russian-Venezuelan JV PetroMiranda (hereinafter referred to as "the JV") on the Russian part. The JV was established in spring 2010 in order to implement the Junin-6 project.

Further, the Project Leader acts as the project technical expert and undertakes to work out the guidelines on day-to-day project implementation for the Russian members of the JV Board. The Project Leader shall be in charge of forming a final investment decision on the further development of the Junin-6 field which will be decided in 2013 based on appraisal results.

The first operational meeting of the Russian project participants was held in September to discuss, amongst other matters, the preparation for ecological audit to assess the current ecological situation at the Junin-6 block.