The Moscow Times: Shell Mulls Joining Shtokman Project: “Royal Dutch/Shell is considering developing a gas field in the Barents Sea in a joint liquefied natural gas project with Gazprom, Shell said Wednesday.” (ShellNews.net)

Reuters

Bas Czerwinski / AP

Thursday, September 30, 2004. Page 5.

AMSTERDAM -- Royal Dutch/Shell is considering developing a gas field in the Barents Sea in a joint liquefied natural gas project with Gazprom, Shell said Wednesday.

"We are currently looking at developing the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea in an LNG project with Gazprom," a Shell spokesman in The Hague said.

He declined to give further details, but added the project was one of the issues discussed at a meeting between visiting Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and Shell's management on Wednesday.

Shtokman is one of the world's biggest gas fields, estimated to contain 3.3 trillion cubic meters of gas.

Gazprom has been talking to a number of foreign firms as potential partners for developing Shtokman or an Arctic LNG plant.

Shell's spokesman said his company, as a major foreign investor in Russia, was encouraged by Moscow's attempt to attract further investment.

Interfax quoted Fradkov as saying after the meeting with Shell that the company was ready to remain involved in developing Russian hydrocarbon fields and to use the national natural gas export system.

"It is the Shtokman field, the Sakhalin field and a number of other fields, which are not being publicly discussed yet," Fradkov said.

"Shell's management expressed an interest in participating in a number of major projects that are capital-intensive."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/09/30/043.html