RIA Novosti quoted Russia environmental regulator said that, the Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-BP may lose its license to develop a huge gas field in Siberia over a failure to comply with the terms of the agreement.

The watchdog said Rosprirodnadzor has completed an unscheduled audit of TNK-BP operations at the Kovykta gas condensate field with estimated reserves of over 2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and will recommend that the Natural Resources Ministry revoke the license.

It was earlier reported that a decision on the revoking of the license for the gas field which also contains 2.3 billion cubic meters of helium and 115 million tonnes of gas condensate could be made before March 1st 2010.

The gas field is located in East Siberia Irkutsk Region.

Under the terms of the license agreement, TNK-BP a highly lucrative 50-50 joint venture between the British major BP and four Russian billionaires is required to produce 9 billion cubic meters of gas annually in contrast to its actual output of several dozen million cubic meters.

Russia Natural Resources Ministry carried out a check of the JV compliance with the license agreement in 2007 and gave RUSIA Petroleum, the Kovykta operator owned by TNK-BP, twelve months to bring up output to the level stipulated in the agreement.

Mr Yury Trutnev Natural Resources Minister earlier announced, however, that the license agreements were not fulfilled in the past and are not being fulfilled at present.

The regulator plans to revoke the license may be linked to an unsettled deal between energy giant Gazprom and TNK-BP on the gas field.

Under an agreement signed in 2007, Gazprom intended to buy a 62.8% stake in RUSIA Petroleum to take over the Kovykta gas field. The deal, however has not been closed as Gazprom was reported in December 2008 to have asked TNK-BP to reduce the price for the purchase of the Kovykta field originally estimated at USD 700 million to USD 900 million.

(Sourced from RIA Novosti)