MOSCOW, Jun 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian oil giant Rosneft has joined independent gas producer Novatek late on Wednesday in its wish to break gas giant Gazprom’s pipeline export monopoly by asking for a government permission to export the blue fuel from new deposits in East Siberia and the country’s Far East.
“The measure will stimulate the development of the whole region,” Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin told a presidential energy commission.
The government has long discussed allowing companies other than Gazprom to export gas via the Sila Sibiri (Power of Siberia) pipeline, which Gazprom is building to bring East Siberian gas to China. Gazprom, which plans to send 38 billion cubic meters of gas to China via the pipeline under a 30-year $400 billion contract, opposes the idea of allowing other firms to use its pipeline.
Rosneft is developing several deposits in East Siberia, which hold up to 20 billion cubic meters of gas and even said it is ready to build gas pipelines of its own there.