E.ON Buy-in Of One-Fourth Of Large Russian Natural Gas Field Makes Germany 50 Percent Owner Of The Energy Pool

October 3, 2008 9:00 a.m. EST

St. Petersburg, Russia (AHN) - After years of negotiations, E.ON and Gazprom inked Thursday a deal in which the German energy firm bought 25 percent of a large natural gas field located at Yuzhno Russkoye in Russia.

Another major German firm, BASF, already own one-fourth of the field. The German investment in the natural gas field is part of the join project of Germany and Russia to build the Nord Stream pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea to plug into the Siberian gas field, which gas reserves of more than 656 billion cubic yards (600 billion cubic meters).

The vast natural gas field could sufficiently provide the power requirements of German residences and factories.

A Russian company, the OAO Severneftegazprom, will be the owner of the production license and operator of the gas field. Since last year gas production has been ongoing. By near year, the field's production is expected to reach 27.3 billion cubic yards (25 billion cubic meters), which will be sufficient to provide the power requirements of a mega city with 10 million households.

In July, E.ON and DONG of Denmark agreed to buy one-third of Royal Dutch Shell's ownership in London Array, one of the world's largest planned wind farm expected to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity.