Russian state gas firm OAO
Gazprom (GAZP.RS) will begin production at its massive Sakhalin-3 offshore gas
project in the Far East in the second half of the year and reach output of 4.2
billion cubic meters a year by 2015, the company said Wednesday.
Gazprom--the world's biggest producer of natural gas--said first gas will come
from the Kirinsky block at Sakhalin off Russia's Pacific Coast and feed into a
major new pipeline from Sakhalin via Khabarovsk to Vladivostok.
The company plans to drill a total of six wells at the Kirinsky block by 2014.
Estimates of reserves at the block have increased to 137 billion cubic meters
from 75 billion cubic meters over the last two years.