Gazprom Wins Kovykta Gas Field Near China for $777 Million

OAO Gazprom, Russia s gas export monopoly, won for the rights to a Siberian deposit that has enough fuel to meet Chinese demand for two decades. The gas producer paid 22.3 billion rubles ($777 million) for assets sold by Rusia Petroleum, the operator of the Kovykta gas field, at a bankruptcy auction, said TNK-BP Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Muir. TNK-BP, BP Plc s Russian oil venture, had sought to sell its 63 percent in Rusia Petroleum to Gazprom in 2007 for as much as $900 million. Gazprom offered significantly more than the 15.1 billion-ruble starting price, said Alexander Smetanin, the external manager of the project. TNK-BP is content with the price, Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Muir said. It s clear the field s reserves are too big for the local market, the gas will have to be exported, and to China, so it had to be Gazprom, Alexander Nazarov, a gas analyst at IFC Metropol, said by phone.