Pierre Nergararian, the head of France's Total in Russia, which is also participating in the oil field development, said at a news conference on Wednesday that if all of the negotiations to include Zarubezhneft in the project are met by the end of this year, then the contract will be backdated to January 1, 2009.
"It is assumed that the date of Zarubezhneft's entry in the agreement will be January 1, 2009, post factum," Nergararian said.
Zarubezhneft is involved in other projects, including a joint venture on oil production with Vietnam to develop the Nam Rong Doi oil field, about 135 kilometers off the coast of Vung Tau. In 2008, the Vietnamese government estimated the field held 56.6 million cubic meters of oil and 1.6 billion cubic meters of gas.
