Gazprom Neft mulls new projects

The Russian firm had stellar production growth of late, but it urgently needs to find new resources

Gazprom Neft, Russia's fourth-largest oil producer, is considering more than 10 new exploration projects to ensure that its output after 2020 maintains current record levels. To achieve this, the state-controlled company is looking at different ways to obtain new licence areas, including auctions, joint ventures and acquisitions. Alexei Vashkevich, head of geological exploration, said in Moscow in February that Gazprom Neft's resource base was sufficient to maintain production at the current level of around 100m tonnes of oil equivalent a year by 2020, but that it was essential to acquire new fields to maintain this over the long-term. By the end of this year, the company plans to make an ag