Putin give extra tax breaks for Shtokman

Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to provide additional tax discounts for the development of the Shtokman Gas Field if necessary, Russian gas giant Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Friday. "The president said today that if the Shtokman project needs any additional preferences, they will be provided," Miller told reporters after a meeting with Putin and Statoil CEO Helge Lund. The participants of the Shtockman gas project are Gazprom with a 51 percent stake, France's Total which has 25 percent and Norway's Statoil with 24 percent. Putin asked the two energy companies to boost activities for investment decision approval to sign it at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in late June. "It is an epoch-making asset so [the companies] should boost activities as the final [investment] decision has not yet been approved," Putin said. The Shtokman field is located some 600 kilometers northeast of Murmansk in the Russian sector of the Barents Sea in waters up to 340 meters deep. The C1 resource in the license territory amounts to 3.8 trillion cubic meters of gas and 53.4 million tons of condensate.