BP's Russian vehicle TNK-BP may lose its rights to develop the giant East Siberian Kovykta gas field before June, Russia's environmental agency said on Monday, two days before its starts a final inspection.
"The inspection will take a couple of days and we will check only one thing – whether they comply with production obligations. The results of the inspection seem obvious to me," Deputy Head of the agency Oleg Mitvol told Reuters.
"Then the documents will go to [license regulator] Rosnedra and be put in for the next commission on license withdrawal. So it [license withdrawal] could happen before June," he said.
The pressure on Kovykta is seen by many analysts as part of a broader state plan to force Russian billionaire shareholders to sell half their TNK-BP stake to a state company, something the shareholders have repeatedly denied.
TNK-BP declined to comment. The firm won earlier this month the right to challenge in court the threat to its Kovykta license.
Mivol said he was not concerned by the court challenge: "They have yet to win the case and I hope the court takes a just decision".
In February, Mitvol's agency, which accuses TNK-BP of underproduction at Kovykta, gave the firm three months to put right violations at the field or face a license revocation.
Under the license terms, Kovykta was to produce 9 billion cubic meters from Kovykta by 2006, but its production was restricted by the needs of Irkutsk region of not more than 2.5 bcm this year.
TNK-BP has repeatedly said Russia's main request to produce more gas from the field could not be met because the Irkutsk region does not need so much gas while the firm's plan to build a pipeline to China was banned by Moscow.
But Russia's resources ministry has said it considers the violations serious, and many experts have interpreted this as Moscow's pressure on TNK-BP to cede Kovykta to gas monopoly Gazprom on cheap terms.
TNK-BP and BP have repeatedly said they are ready to cede leadership in Kovykta to Gazprom if the field becomes part of a bigger development in East Siberia.
Mitvol led the state's environmental pressure on Royal Dutch/Shell's Sakhalin-2 oil and gas group last year until the group agreed to sell a controlling stake to Gazprom for $7.45 billion.
The pressure quickly subsided after the sale.
(Reuters)