The Kovykta deal is part of an agreement signed between Gazprom, Britain's BP, and Russian-British TNK-BP in June 2007. Under the agreement, Gazprom is to buy a 62.8% stake in Rusia Petroleum, the operator of East Siberia's largest gas deposit.
"There have been different visions of these processes," Stanislav Tsygankov, the head of Gazprom's foreign economic activity department, said. "The ball in now in the court of TNK-BP shareholders."
The companies initially planned to close the deal within 90 days, but the deadline was repeatedly postponed. Viktor Vekselberg, TNK-BP's executive director, said last December that the deadline for closing the Kovykta deal had been put back for technical reasons.
The deposit's reserves are estimated at 2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, 2.3 billion cubic meters of helium and 115 million metric tons of gas condensate.
