The Yuzhno Russkoye field, which is located in the Yamal-Nenets region, is among the largest gas fields in Russia. Its current plateau production comes to 25 billion cubic meters per year.
The Nord Stream pipeline uses Yuzhno Russkoye gas field as its major source to supply Russian gas directly to Germany.
The license of the Russian gas field will expire by the end of 2043.
OMV executive board chairman and CEO Rainer Seele said: “The closing of this landmark transaction is a further milestone in OMV´s successful delivery on its corporate strategy to establish Russia as a new core region of OMV.
“Our stake in Yuzhno Russkoye adds 100,000 boe/d to OMV´s production. This boosts OMV´s total production to more than 430,000 boe/d.”
OMV deputy CEO and upstream board member Johann Pleininger revealed that the acquisition of the stake gives the company 580 million barrel of oil equivalent of additional recoverable reserves. Apart from that, the acquisition would also bring down the company’s production costs further.
Uniper carried out the transaction through its subsidiary Uniper Exploration & Production. The transaction, which marked the exit of Uniper from the Russian gas field, was done by the German company to reduce its debt.
Uniper CEO Klaus Schäfer said: “We were able to conclude the sale of our interests in Yuzhno-Russkoye within the announced time frame and thereby fully achieved our debt reduction target ahead of schedule.
“That provides us with a greater degree of security and flexibility in the capital market and in our business activities.”
Uniper says that despite the sale of its stake in the gas field, Russia continues to be a core area of its business whether in terms of Russian power supplies through Unipro, its Russian subsidiary or in terms of European gas supply with its partner, Gazprom.
Image: Map showing location of Yuzhno Russkoye gas field (Russia). Photo: courtesy of OMV Aktiengesellschaft.
