New large player appears on oil market in Russia

A large oil and gas field has been discovered in the Astrakhan region, Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology, Sergey Donskoy said. He was named Velikoye (the Tambov area in the Kharabalinsk district). The field's reserves are "unprecedented: about 300 million tons of oil and 90 billion cubic meters of gas," - the Ministry said: "Such major discoveries haven’t taken place in Russia for more than 20 years". The recoverable reserves of the field make up 331 million tons of oil (C1 and C2), the Bloomberg reported, referred to general director of the license holder - oil and gas company AFB, Boris Bogushev. According to him, the State Commission registered the reserves of the field on January 1, 2014.

According to the web-site of Rosnedra, AFB received the license for the Tambov area for geological exploration, development and production in May of 2011. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the license validity period is until May 31 of 2036. The company was the only bidder and paid 37.8 million rubles for the license. The tender documentation show very modest resources of the area: 2 million tons of oil (D2 category) and 177 billion cubic meters of gas (D1 + D1l + D2 categories).