Lukoil gets “a little” admitted to shelf

Russian State Duma has adopted amendments to the law on subsoil use in second reading. The final document, about which major Russian oil and gas companies broke spears for almost seven years, proved to be quite modest.

The intricate name of the bill actually hided a tough fight that the private companies conducted for the right to be admitted to the exploration and production of hydrocarbons on the Russian shelf. At the forefront of this struggle was Lukoil. And it is modest, but the only beneficiary.

Lukoil was intensively engaged in the shelf development since the mid-nineties. That was understandable: the continental deposits of the company are quite complex. And Vagit Alekperov gambled on the shelf. At the first step, on the Baltic one. Things went well. Triumph of the company was the start of development of the Kravtsovskoye field with recoverable reserves of about 9 million tons of oil in 2004 (it was discovered twenty years ago). Then, in the course of exploration, the D-41 field with the same reserves was defined.