OREANDA-NEWS. December 31, 2009. The General Director of JSC “Zarubezhneft” N.G. Brunich and the Chairman of the board of directors of LLC “Oil and gas company “Itera” I.V.Makarov signed Cooperation Agreement on exploration and production of hydrocarbons in the block 21 of the Turkmenian sector of the Caspian sea.

Formerly, in September, 2009 “OGC “ITERA” signed Production Sharing Agreement with the State Agency for Management and Use of Hydrocarbon Resources at the President of Turkmenistan for the offshore block 21 of the Turkmenian sector of the Caspian sea.

During the signing of the Agreement I.V.Makarov noticed that the block 21 is a difficult project and “Zarubezhneft” has almost 30-year experience of offshore operating, that is why “Itera” has chosen exactly this company as a partner. In his turn N.G. Brunich thanked the management of “Itera” for the offer to join the project and assured everybody that “Zarubezhneft” will do everything possible for its successful realization. N.G. Brunich underlined the importance of the signed document by mentioning the fact that a state company represented by JSC

Till the end of the year it is planned to complete the deal of acquisition 51% of the project share by “Zarubezhneft”. The project investments could reach USD 6 billions. Operations on the field will tentatively start in the beginning of 2010.

In the beginning period during three years the 2D seismic works will be conducted in the volume of 1200 line km and one exploratory well will be drilled.

According to the preliminary estimates of experts the recoverable oil reserves of the block 21 is about 219 millions tons, associated gas - 92 billions cubic meters.