Supervisory council for international oil and gas project Sakhalin-2 meets in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

A regular session of the Supervisory Council for the international oil and gas project Sakhalin-2 opened Wednesday in Yuzhno- Sakhalinsk, an administrative centre of the Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk.

As the administration of the region reported, the participants in the international consortium will consider the budget for the comprehensive development of the Piltun-Astokh and Lunsk deposits which are part of the Sakhalin-2 project.

The realisation of the international projects on the Sakhalin sea shelf is going ahead. In 2001, foreign companies invested nearly 450 million dollars, twice as many as in 2000, into the production of oil and gas on the island.

The investments into the international projects of Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 for the production of oil and gas on the shelf of the island in 2002 may top one billion dollars.

The Sakhalin Energy company, the operator of the Sakhalin-2 project, intends also to finance the entire amount of the work for building an oil terminal in the south of the island in the Aniva Bay.

The Sakhalin Energy and the Exxon Oil and Gas Limited, an operator of the Sakhalin-1 project, have concluded the study of the problem of modernising the sea ports on the island.

The biggest amount of work is planned to do in the Kholmsk sea port into which the operators of the shelf projects intend to bring equipment and other goods by sea.

With this aim in view it is planned to modernise the berths and deepen the sea bottom in the ports.

The feasibility studies for modernising the Sakhalin sea ports and building terminals have already been submitted for a state expertise.

After their approval, tenders will be announced, presumably in the third quarter of 2002, for modernising the ports and building terminals.

Tenders will also be held for the construction of nearly all big facilities under the Sakhalin-1 and the Sakhalin-2 projects.