OREANDA-NEWS. OAO NOVATEK (“NOVATEK” and/or the “Company”) announced the launch of the Eastern dome of the North-Urengoyskoye field developed by the Nortgas joint venture.

Eighteen (18) production wells have been completed at the Eastern dome, and its infrastructure includes a gas treatment facility with annual capacity of six (6) billion cubic meters (bcm), gas gathering networks, gas and gas condensate pipelines to the Western dome of the field. The Eastern dome allows the joint venture to achieve peak production capacity of more than 10 bcm of natural gas and 1.4 million tons of gas condensate already in 2014.

According to NOVATEK's CEO, Leonid Mikhelson, “We acquired our equity stake in Nortgas less than twelve months ago, and the Eastern dome of the North-Urengoyskoye field has been prepared for production launch within a very short period of time and is an important contributing factor in our gas and gas condensate production growth. The expected ramp up of gas condensate production is fully synchronized with the expansion of our processing facilities”.

Nortgas is a 50/50 joint venture between OAO NOVATEK and OAO Gazprom.

The North-Urengoyskoye field has proved reserves of 157.3 bcm of natural gas and 21.1 mmt of liquid hydrocarbons, as estimated under SEC reserves methodology at 31 December 2012. Hydrocarbon deposits of the field are allocated between the Eastern and Western domes. Commercial production at the Western dome commenced in 2001.

In nine month 2013, marketable production of the field was 2.90 bcm of natural gas and 290 thousand tons of gas condensate.

Gas condensate produced at the field is processed at the Company's Purovsky Plant.