KRASNOYARSK (Eastern Siberia), May 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft [RTS: ROSN] said Thursday it intends to invest about $3 billion in the Vankor oil and gas field in Eastern Siberia by the end of 2007.
Rosneft CEO Sergei Bogdanchikov said the company would start oil production at the Vankor field, located some 150 kilometers (93 miles) west of the river port city of Igarka, as soon as 2008.
Vankor crude will be pumped to the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline, an ambitious multibillion-dollar project to send Russian hydrocarbons to energy-hungry Asia-Pacific region countries. The pipeline is set to come online in 2008.
Alexander Nazarenko, the company's chief engineer, said Rosneft's recoverable crude reserves at the Vankor field had grown by 77 million metric tons (565 million barrels) to 490 million metric tons (3.6 billion barrels) by 2007 as a result of improved oil recovery performance.
