Gazprom, the Russia state-owned energy firm, has announced plans to sell off its UK North Sea business.
That includes its stake in the Sillimanite field in the UK North Sea, which last year banked nearly £40m for Russia despite heavy UK sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine.
Similarly, the move would sell off the Gazprom stake in the nearby Wingate gas platform off the coast of the UK.
A competitive sales process has now been launched, according to a tender document.
Wingate, like Sillimanite, is operated by Wintershall Nordzee, a joint venture with Gazprom, and is monitored and controlled from an office in Den Helder in the Netherlands.
Gazprom has placed a call for bids on Gazprombank’s e-trading facility.
Gazprom UK assets ‘unacceptable’
The last two years have passed without action on these assets, despite leaders across the board blasting it as “unacceptable”, such as the Lib Dem’s Sir Ed Davey in December.
UK gas fields made Gazprom around £40m in 2022 and £36m in 2021.
Commentators said it is a “blindingly obvious place to start” when the chancellor is seeking ways to clamp down on Putin’s funding streams.
The UK Government has previously highlighted that the gas is not supplied to the UK.
Wintershall Nordzee
Gazprom became a shareholder of Wintershall Noordzee B.V. (WINZ) in 2015 as part of the assets swap between Gazprom and Wintershall Holding GmbH (now Wintershall Dea).
Wintershall Nordzee’s main producing projects are K18-Golf, Wingate, Q1-B, Q1-D, and Sillimanite, which account for about 90% of the Company’s extracted products. Extracted natural gas is delivered to the EU market on spot contracts.
Sillimanite was discovered in June 2015, with produced gas supplied to the Dutch pipeline system.
Wingate is a shallow-water gas field in the Southern North Sea, discovered in 2009 and put into operation in 2011.
The normally unmanned Wingate platform is remotely managed from Den Helder, with gas also supplied to the Dutch pipeline system.
Russian assets are not part of the package of assets being bought by Harbour Energy as part of its takeover of Wintershall DEA announced in December.
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