Spanish-Argentine oil company Repsol YPF SA (REP) Tuesday confirmed it is in talks to buy a stake in one of the Russian Sakhalin Islands oil and gas fields.
A company press official in Madrid said a deal could be announced in coming days or weeks. The official couldn't immediately say which of the Sakhalin projects Repsol plans to enter, nor which stake it would possibly take.
Repsol Chairman Antonio Brufau in an interview published in the Financial Times' Tuesday Internet edition said the company wants to take a significant stake. The paper cited industry sources as saying the deal is for a 25% stake in Sakhalin III, a block in the far east of Russia.
Russia's Rosneft (ROSN.RS), which owns 74.9%, and Sinopec of China, which holds 25.1%, are in the early stages of exploration, the FT adds.