Russian-British TNK-BP intends to double gas production to 30 billion cubic meters by 2020, Alastair Ferguson, TNK-BP's head of gas business development, said on Monday.
Associated gas will account for about a half of the company's gas production, he said.
The company plans to invest $1.8 billion before 2014 in associated gas utilization to reach an 85 percent associated gas utilization level by the end of the year and to meet state requirements of 95 percent utilization by 2012, he said.
Last year Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered a reduction in air pollution from associated gas flaring to five percent of associated gas production.
Ferguson also said that the 30 bcm gas production target was a conservative forecast, which did not take into account other eventual projects, including gas production from unconventional sources in Ukraine, the company's Vietnamese projects as well as the development of TNK-BP's Rospan gas unit, which produces gas in Russia's northern Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region.
MOSCOW, November 22 (RIA Novosti)
