Gasprom examines closely oil and gas in Crimea – the company’s representatives have requested the Crimean authorities to develop oil and gas fields.
However, some experts doubt that Gasprom will be able to manage the Crimean project, writes the Centre for Energy Expertise.
Igor Yushlov, leading analyst of the Fund for National Energy Safety, is sure that “as time goes by the issue of the Crimean shelf development will die away.” Gasprom has enough undeveloped fields with the license for development. The Crimean shelf will most likely become a “frozen” project. The expert said “Gasprom does not work in deep water areas by itself, it will have to involve somebody else. If sanctions are applied, it will have problems with that.”
Benyamin Vutianov, dean of the State Regulation of Economy Chair, believes that today Gasprom “has serious problems with innovative technologies.” “We know that from development of the Shtokman field. Cooperation between Gasprom and foreign companies is unreal now when the relationships with the European countries are very tense.
Some experts do not question, however, Gasprom’s technical possibilities for development of the Crimean fields. But they see different problems. Analyst of Izvestiya newspaper Aleksei Pukhayev said that it is more important how Gasprom is going to clean its assets from the “questionable elements.” He reminded that earlier Black Sea Neftegas was owned by the Ukrainian Naftogas and now “Ukrainian company has all the chances to get a huge sum from any other company, which will start using this asset, through the court.”
