MOSCOW, September 22. /ITAR-TASS/. All issues concerning the funding of the Tsentralnoye oil and gas field in the Caspian Sea, including the issue of possible foreign investments in the project, will be considered after all geological survey operations are completed, a Russian presidential envoy said on Monday.

In an interview with Caspian Energy magazine Igor Bratchikov, Russia’s special presidential envoy for the delimitation and demarcation of borders with CIS states, said “LLC Tsentralnaya Oil and Gas Company [co-owners are the Russian Companies LUKoil and Gazprom with 25% each and Kazakh Company KazMunayGas with 50%], is an operator of the project on development of the Tsentralnoye field.”

“The preparing and determination of parameters for the production sharing agreement are currently underway,” Bratchikov said. “Based on this PSA, it is planned to carry out production of hydrocarbons in compliance with the conditions of the Agreement on delimitation of the bed in the north part of the Caspian Sea reached between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan in 1998.”

“Issues concerning funding of the project, including feasibility study and investments are expected to be solved following the outcomes of the analysis of the results of geological survey operations,” the presidential envoy added.

Presidents of the five littoral states of the Caspian Sea, which are Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, are scheduled to gather for the 4th Caspian Summit in the Russian southern city of Astrakhan on September 29.

Bratchikov earlier said Moscow hoped that the process of working out a legal status of the Caspian Sea will get a significant boost following the 4th Caspian Summit. The previous Caspian Summit was held in 2010 in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union delimitation of the Caspian Sea had been remaining an unresolved issue related to the sharing of hydrocarbon and biological resources. The Caspian Sea’s proven oil reserves are estimated at around 10 billion tons and total reserves of oil and gas condensate at 18-20 billion tons.

For a long time the Caspian littoral states have been conducting talks on delimitation. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have been insisting on median line demarcation and Iran - on one fifth slice of the sea given to all littoral states.