Development of the Tsentralnoye field in the Caspian Sea is hampered because of dispute on legal form and calculation of expenditures

Start of the Tsentralnoye field development in the Caspian Sea dispute is hampered because of dispute between the project operator and officials of the Russian Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Natural Resources and Rosnedra on legal form of the field development and calculation of historical expenditures.

As a source in the Ministry of Natural Resources said to the Interfax, intergovernmental agreement of Russia and Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea’s fields development says that the Tsentralnoye field should be developed under a production sharing agreement (PSA).

But the project operator oil company Tsentralnoye, which co-owners are Lukoil, Gazprom and KazMunaiGas, asks Rosnedra to give it an exploration license at first, then the extraction one and then to conclude PSA. "The project operator wants to conduct exploration of the field, to drill one or two additional wells, to clarify flow rates and characteristics of the field and so on more carefully, not within the PSA and without inclusion into reimbursable expenses. And then to confirm the costs of these works as historical," - he said.