On Sakhalin, a lawsuit was filed against the Sakhalin-1 operator Exxon Neftegas Limited

MOSCOW, 9 Oct — PRIME. The Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Finance of the Sakhalin Region filed a lawsuit with the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Court against Exxon Neftegas Limited, the former operator of the Sakhalin 1 project, follows from the court’s data on civil cases of first instance.

According to the information in the case, the lawsuit was filed on September 26, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for October 14. The plaintiffs are the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Finance of the Sakhalin Region, the defendant is Exxon Neftegas Limited. The regional government and the department of the federal tax service (UFNS) for the region were appointed third parties in the case. The details of the claim are not given.

In addition, the FSPP administration for the Sakhalin region seized the assets of Exxon Neftegas Limited by decision of the same Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Court, which issued the corresponding writ of execution on September 27, follows from these enforcement proceedings.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to create a new Russian operator of the Sakhalin 1 PSA project, which will take over the rights and obligations of Exxon Neftegaz limited. The new operator will be managed by the Rosneft structure Sakhalinmorneftegaz-Shelf, at least until all the stakes in the operator are distributed, after which the authority of the structure can be extended, follows from the decree.

The current operator of the Sakhalin 1 project, Exxon Neftegaz Limited (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil), owns a 30% stake in it. In March, the company announced its intention to withdraw from the project, and in April it introduced a force majeure regime, as a result of which gas and oil production was completely stopped. Also shareholders of Sakhalin 1 are Rosneft (20%), Japanese Sodeco (30%) and Indian ONGC (20%).