Novatek Sells Russian Field to Total JV
Russia's Novatek has sold a gas field in Western Siberia to its Terneftegaz joint venture with France's Total for rubles 730mn ($9.9mn), the company disclosed in its fourth-quarter financial report, released on February 17.
The Chernichnoye field in the Yamalo-Nenets region holds 179mn barrels of oil equivalent in explored and estimated (C1+C2) resources. Novatek bought the undeveloped field from Russian national resources group Mangazeya for rubles 616mn in 2018, as part of an acquisition drive to boost its waning domestic gas supply. It was estimated at the time that the field could flow 500mn m3/year of gas at full capacity.
Chernichnoye is situated less than 15 km northwest from the Termokarstovoye field controlled by Terneftegaz, which came on stream in 2015 and currently flows 2.4bn m3/yr of gas. Novatek uses Termokarstovoye to supply its industrial customers in Russia. The fields are many hundreds of km south from Novatek's Arctic LNG projects, where it is also partnered with Total.