Russian gas monopoly OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) will get a license to explore Sakhalin-3 project's Kirinsky gas block within a month, the newspaper RBC-Daily reported Wednesday, citing unnamed ministry sources.
In February, Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Alexander Ananenkov asked then Deputy Prime Minister, now the new President, Dmitry Medvedev to permit the company to explore three out of four Sakhalin-3 project's blocks by April.
State-owned OAO Rosneft (ROSN.RS) is currently developing one of Sakhalin-3's blocks with China's Sinopec. Work hasn't yet begun on the other three, in which Rosneft also expressed interest, and which are thought to contain 600 million tons of oil.