Total To Renew Projects With LUKoil As Soon As Sanctions Are Lifted

The CEO of the French energy company Total in Russia says his company wants to return to its oil projects in Russia when sanctions are lifted.

French energy giant Total said on Thursday it plans to return to its joint projects in Russia with LUKoil after the lifting of sanctions, where the two companies had been cooperating on production from hard-to-recover oil reserves.

"We want to reestablish our collaboration with LUKoil on the Bazhenov formation as soon as sanctions are lifted,"

General Director of Total in Russia, Jacques de Boisseson, told RIA Novosti.

"We are fully committed to Russia and are continuing to develop our current Russian projects – the Kharyaga Production Sharing Agreement, the Termokarstovoe field, and of course the Yamal Liquified Natural Gas project, since sanctions do not obstruct our work on them."

Earlier on Thursday, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Total was leaving its joint projects with LUKoil as a result of sanctions; the Russian energy company would take over the licenses for the three projects in the Khanty Mansiysk region in western Siberia.

In the first half of 2014, Total acquired licenses for three hard-to-recover oil blocks in the region, Tashinsky, Eastern Kovensky, and Lyaminsky. As part of the project to develop the sites, in which the two parties had been planning to invest $120- $150 million over two years, Russian LUKoil added its Galyanovsky license block to the development.

We agreed that we [LUKoil] will continue working on our own," said Lukoil boss Vagit Alekperov on Wednesday, confirming that the development's French partners “can of course return to the project after sanctions are lifted.”