MOSCOW, December 26 (RIA Novosti) - Sakhalin Energy, an operator of the Sakhalin II oil and natural gas project in Russia's Far East, increased its oil production to 12.1 million barrels in 2005 against 11.6 million barrels last year, the company said Monday.
In a news release, the company said that as of December 16 it had completed its longest production season since operations began in July 1999 at the Vityaz industrial complex, which includes a sea platform, a single anchor leg mooring system and a floating storage and offloading facility. A total of 73.7 million barrels has been produced since that time. In 2005, 21 oil batches were supplied to Japan, Korea and Thailand.
Sakhalin Energy was established by Shell (owns a 55% stake) and two Japanese companies, Mitsui (25%) and Mitsubishi (20%), to implement and develop the Sakhalin II project, which has an estimated cost of more than $20 billion. Sakhalin II is based on a production sharing agreement that was signed in 1994.
