Gazprom gets license gas field

Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom received a license to develop giant Kovykta gas field, with enough reserves to cover the world's gas needs for eight months, the company said on Friday. In March, Gazprom bought assets of the bankrupt operator of the Kovykta deposit, RUSIA Petroleum, a unit of British-Russian oil firm TNK-BP, for 25.8 billion rubles ($890 million) at an auction. In 1997, TNK-BP bought the license for Kovykta, located in East Siberia, in the expectation of gas export liberalization which would allow it to sell gas to energy-hungry China. TNK-BP was unable to do so because of Gazprom's export monopoly. The inability to export gas forced TNK-BP to produce less gas than was stipulated in the license, which was later withdrawn for because the firm was not producing from it. The field's gas reserves amount to 1.5 trillion cubic meters to A+B+C1+C2 category, while gas condensate reserves stand at 77 million tons.