ConocoPhillips Chief Executive James Mulva met with OAO Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller for talks in Moscow Tuesday on developing the Shtokman gas field, Russian gas giant Gazprom said in a statement Tuesday.
ConocoPhillips will soon give proposals to Gazprom for the project, Gazprom said. The companies agreed to continue negotiations on the project.
ConocoPhillips was among five international oil and gas companies that had hoped, until late last year, to acquire a minority stake in the Shtokman project. After considering bids from the five companies, however, Gazprom said it had decided to retain ownership of the field and hire foreign companies as subcontractors.
Besides ConocoPhillips, U.S. oil major Chevron Corp., France's Total SA, and Norwegian companies Statoil ASA and Norsk Hydro ASA also vied for a stake in Shtokman.
Gazprom has said it will use gas from Shtokman to fill the Nord Stream pipeline, now being built from Russia to Germany across the floor of the Baltic Sea. Later stages of development of the field will see Shtokman gas shipped by tanker to foreign markets in the form of liquefied natural gas, Gazprom officials have said.
(Dow Jones Newswires, 06/03/2007)