OREANDA-NEWS. April 17, 2012. NOVATEK (“NOVATEK” and/or the “Company”) today announced that Gazprom and the Company (collectively referred to as the “Parties”) have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation whereby NOVATEK and Gazprom are considering the possibility to establish a joint venture to increase liquefied natural gas (LNG) production capacity on the Yamal peninsula as well as jointly developing hydrocarbon resources on the Gydan peninsula.
 
The Parties will consider establishing a joint venture (preliminary shareholdings: Gazprom – 75%; NOVATEK – 25%) based on the hydrocarbon resources of Gazprom’s Tambey fields to increase LNG production on the Yamal peninsula.
 
The Parties also plan to establish a joint venture based on NOVATEK’s Utrenneye (Salmanovskoye) field to develop the existing assets located on the Gydan peninsula with equal shareholdings (Gazprom - 50% and NOVATEK – 50%).  Gazprom and NOVATEK will formulate and approve an integrated program for developing their fields on the Gydan peninsula.
 
The timeline to bring the Stockman LNG Project into operation does not depend on the plans to establish a joint venture for LNG production on the Yamal peninsula.
 
Note:
The North-Tambeyskoye, West-Tambeyskoye and Tasiyskoye fields comprise Gazprom’s Tambey fields on the Yamal peninsula in close proximity to the infrastructure to be built for the South-Tambeyskoye field and the port of Sabetta. The natural gas reserves according to Russian reserve classification С1+С2 for these fields total 1.56 trillion cubic meters (“tcm”), which is considered sufficient to ensure the production of 20 million tons of LNG per annum.
 
The Utrenneye (Salmanovskoye) field, located on the Gydan peninsula, contains estimated C1+C2 natural gas reserves totaling 767.1 bcm.