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Potential unlimited

01 May 2001

Having closed the $2bn Blue Stream, Gazprom is already looking to finance new gas and oil projects. But despite unlimited limited recourse potential, Gazprom could soon face commercial challenges it has never experienced before.

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Gazprom hopes to step up its project finance lending programme ? but management fears that European gas liberalisation could undermine the long-term export contracts that are essential as collateral.
According to Sergei Dubinin, deputy chairman of Gazprom, the company intends to raise investment capital for ?a number of principal projects? in the form of off-balance-sheet project finance. (see interview).
Dubinin says that having succesfully closed the $2 billion loan for the Gazprom-ENI Blue Stream pipeline ? by far the largest deal for a Russian borrower since the 1998 financial crisis ? the company's priority is to secure financing for two Arctic offshore upstream projects: Shtokman (gas) and Prirazlomnoye (oil).

But Dubinin also warns that European gas market liberalisation could make collateralising such finance ?impossible?, and calls on European political and financial institutions to help ensure the projects' future. He indicates that Gazprom ? which is opposed to the full market liberalisation envisaged by the European Energy Charter...


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