Majority stake in Sakhalin 2 Project will be given over to Gazprom during the negotiations in London as promised by Shell earlier in exchange for the assets in Russia’s Siberian fields.
      
      
       Aleksei Miller, head of the board of directors at Gazprom, meets Van der Veer, chief of the Royal Dutch/Shell company to strike the deals and agree on other joint ventures.
      
      
       This looks like a good faith case of business swap. We are not certain whose initiative it is, but the exchange is in the best interests of both – Gazprom got its hands on the profitable pipeline to the Asian market and the liquefied natural gas business while Shell goes out with a 50% slice in Zapolyarnoye-Neokom, a company incorporated specifically for the development of the gas fields, to maintain its capitalization and settle firmly with the Russian resources.
      
      
       Other Sakhalin shareholders include the Japanese corporations Mitsui (25%) and Mitsubishi (20%). The project itself uncovers some 150m tons of oil and over 500bn cubic meters of gas, while the Zapolyarnoye deposit prospected in 1965 harbours some 3.3 to 4 trillion cubic meters of gas and is Gazprom’s third largest gas field, following the Urengoy, with 5.8 trillion, and and theYamburg deposit, with 4.7 trillion. The face value is just $4 per 1,000 cubic m with 100 bn cubic meters produced yearly since 2004.