The Russian-British company TNK-BP owns 62.42% of shares in the company and holds the license for the development of this large gas field. Russia's Interros owns 25.82% of shares, and 11.24% of shares belong to the State Property Management Committee of the Irkutsk administration.
Irkutsk Governor Boris Govorin said the region cannot afford to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the gas field development and would, therefore, sell its shares at a decent price.
"The Irkutsk region administration will sell its block of shares as soon as it gets a lucrative proposal," reads the statement.
"As to the Kovyktino project, we had had to attract major companies for prospecting and bringing gas reserves up to the world standard. The gas reserves were fixed at 1.9 trillion cubic meters. The project became more lucrative. We accomplished the task. Now we need investment," said the governor.
