Total to give back Gazprom 25% in Shtokman field

The French company Total will transfer 25% of the company Shtokman Development AG, established in 2008 to develop the first phase of the giant Shtokman field, to Gazprom, three people close to both sides of the negotiations told the Vedomosti. Final agreement was reached at the meeting of chairman of Gazprom’s management Alexei Miller and head of Total Patrick Pouyanné at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. With the resumption of the Shtokman project, Gazprom will call Total first to participate in it, the press centre of Gazprom cited Miller’s words after his meeting with Pouyanné. A representative of Gazprom declined to comment on Tuesday.

"Participation of Total in the Shtokman project marked the beginning of our cooperation with Gazprom, and in the future we would like to continue working together," - general director of Total in Russia Jacques de Buassezon said through his representative.

Agreement of Shtokman Development AG’s shareholders, in which Gazprom originally owned 51%, Total - 25%, and Statoil - 24%, expired in the summer of 2012. The investment decision on the project wasn’t accepted, and Total and Statoil have to return their shares to Gazprom. Statoil did this, written off $335 million of the loss. Total remained in the project, and written off $350 million of the loss on it only in April 2014. Gazprom itself announced in March that it could write off 22.3 billion rubles of the loss on the project.