Trutnev said his ministry had complaints about low production at 24 of TNK-BP's facilities. "All grounds exist to submit this issue to the commission for revoking licenses," he said.
TNK-BP spokeswoman Marina Dracheva explained that the company had inherited a high number of idle wells, which it was working to reactivate, and insisted that it had a good "working relationship" with the Natural Resources Ministry.
Trutnev said his ministry would investigate cost overruns that had seen the spending forecast at Shell's flagship Sakhalin-2 oil and liquefied natural gas project double. "They propose increasing the volume of investment and consequently reducing the economic effect for Russia," he said. The increased costs mean it would be longer before state coffers see revenues from the project in violation of the agreement under which the license had been originally granted.
In July last year, Shell said the expected cost of developing its oil and gas fields at Sakhalin had doubled to around $20 billion. The firm blamed currency swings and rising prices of commodities for driving up the cost.
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