Texas oilman takes on Gazprom over giant contract claim

BERLIN: In a court case closely watched by investors, a Texas company is accusing Gazprom of refusing to honor an investment and property agreement in one of Russia’s biggest gas fields.

Richard Moncrief, chairman of Moncrief Oil International, said he had decided to use the German courts to establish what he says is a 40 percent stake worth $12 billion, in the vast Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field of western Siberia. The field is intended to supply the underwater Nord Stream pipeline, through which Russia will be able to supply natural gas directly to Germany and Western Europe, bypassing Ukraine, Belarus and Poland.


Gazprom, owned by the Russian state, is the world’s largest gas company, with a vast network of fields in the Arctic and Siberia.

Moncrief obtained the stake in the Yuzhno-Russkoye field a decade ago, with a Gazprom subsidiary holding the remainder, according to documents filed in court in connection with the lawsuit and reviewed by the International Herald Tribune. Moncrief insists that his claim is still valid, while Gazprom has neither rejected nor accepted it.

His hopes, he said, were now pinned on the Landgericht Berlin, a regional court that will decide within a few weeks whether Moncrief can begin proceedings against Gazprom in the German capital.

If so, it could cause Gazprom “just a little embarrassment,” according to Anders Aslund, a Russia specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

“Taking over gas fields one by one has been a standard way of doing business by Gazprom,” he said. “Few companies which have dared challenge Russia in the courts have won.”

IHT