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Environmental hearing approves Gazprom's Shtokman LNG project

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MURMANSK, September 22 (RIA Novosti) - A public hearing involving business and political representatives and environmental experts in northern Russia approved Friday a massive Shtokman gas project led by natural gas giant Gazprom.

The Shtokman deposit holds an estimated 3.2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, and 31 million metric tons of gas condensate in the Barents Sea. Some $12-14 billion will be invested in the project's first phase, and production will start in 2011.

"We reassured the public that the impact on the environment will be minimal," said Alexander Sherstobitov, deputy head of Gazprom's pre-investment research department.

Representatives of Gazprom, the Giprospetsgaz joint-stock gas construction company, the Kola Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, regional executive-branch officials, and environmental scientists took part in the hearings. Residents of the areas through which the pipeline will pass were invited to put questions to the participants and organizers about the project.

A 1,356-kilometer branch of the gas pipeline will connect a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Vidyayevo on the Barents Sea coast to the main pipeline, with 455 kilometers passing through the Murmansk Region.

After the pipeline comes online, the region is expected to receive 4.7 billion cubic meters of gas annually, making it possible to transfer the region's entire energy sector to gas.

This week, hearings have been held in five towns where construction of a gas condensate complex and sections of the gas pipeline are planned, the regional administration said Friday.

The public hearings focused mainly on the environmental effect of the project, job opportunities, tax revenues, social programs, gas supplies and technical details, said Andrei Kalmykov of Gazprom.

Gazprom's Sherstobitov also said the gas pipeline would bring benefits to the region.

"With time, thermopower plants will be transferred to gas fuel," he said. "It produces relatively low harmful emissions compared to diesel fuel and coal."

Sherstobitov said Gazprom had consulted with highly-qualified experts in assessing the environmental impact of the project. "They said the impact will be short-term, and nature will be able to recover from it," he said.

Anatoly Vinogradov, head of a regional seismological center, said the project was very well thought-out.

"We think it is one of the best-developed projects. It is already the third version of the Shtokman gas pipeline project, and we can say that it is the best," he said, adding that the project would have no damaging effect on the environment.

"Of course, some mess will accompany the construction, but afterwards the project will be entirely green," Vinogradov said, adding that the route would leave intact archeological monuments, national parks and nature preservation zones.

"The only concern is possible geodynamics in the area," he said. "It may involve man-caused earthquakes in 10-15 years."

However, he said that all mineral extraction projects entailed geodynamical phenomena when oil or gas were pumped from the Earth's crust, but added that if managed well, the process could have no consequences.

Vinogradov said environmentalists would have to follow the construction closely.

"Local environmentalists will have to work hard to control the construction process and examine construction sites," he said.

Gazprom is considering partners for the unique project off Russia's Arctic shelf, which could be operated under a production-sharing agreement, although such schemes elsewhere in Russia have come under considerable scrutiny in the past few weeks.

A shortlist of companies competing for the project unveiled last September includes Norway's Statoil and Norsk Hydro, France's Total, and U.S. giants Chevron and ConocoPhillips. Gazprom will select two or three partners from the shortlist to form a consortium for the project.

Gazprom, however, has repeatedly postponed the selection of Shtokman partners. The event was initially scheduled to take place in spring, then in August, but no partner has been selected so far.

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