Rosneft fights with Gazprom over Arctic shelf

The companies start the fight for control over the Russian Arctic shelf.

Rosneft, that has been fighting against the allowing of access of other companies to the shelf until recently, is now against its recent friend. The oil company criticizes the intention of the gas monopoly to attract its affiliate Gazprom Neft to the development. Moreover, Rosneft, that has applied for another 8 shelf sites, thinks its a part of the 20 licenses, that the Government promised to Gazprom, are to be given to it. The company’s position might be connected with the fact that soon Gazprom Neft will become its real competitor by obtaining the right for the shelf development.

Rosneft keeps fighting for the Russian shelf. But if earlier the conditions of the state company were against private competitors, now it criticizes Gazprom, with which it was supposed to share the shelf. At the end of the last week the deputy chairman of Rosneft, Vice President of the Russian Academy of Science, N. Laverov, wrote a letter to the Minister of Natural Resources, S. Donskoi, criticizing the monopoly’s plans for the shelf development.