Russia to Offer Rights to Far Eastern Gas Acreage
Russia's subsoil licensing agency Rosnedra has launched an auction for three gas-containing areas in the south of the Yakutia region in the Russian Far East, it said on November 24.
The Maisky, Severny (North) and Yuzhny (South) blocks contain over 100bn m3 of gas and more than 55mn metric tons (403mn barrels) of oil in Russian D2 classification resources. The most resource potential is at the Severny block, estimated to hold 47.8bn m3 of gas and 8.6mn mt of oil.
Companies have until December 17 to file applications in the auction, and results will be announced on January 19, Rosnedra said. The starting prices for bids have been set at rubles 45.4mn ($600,000) for Maisky, rubles 92mn for Severny and rubles 94.7mn for Yuzhny.
Yakutia, spanning over 3mn km2, is scarcely explored, although a number of gas fields have been discovered in its east. The largest of these is Gazprom's 1.2 trillion-m3 Chayandinskoye field, which has been flowing gas to China since December last year via the Power of Siberia pipeline. The other deposits in production in Yakutia are used for local gas supply.