The company of Abramovich’s son is looking for gas in the Saratov region

The Diall Alliance company, controlled by Roman Abramovich’s son Arkady, plans to invest 6.5 billion rubles. in the development of the eastern part of the Bortovoye licensed area in the Saratov region in order to start exploitation of the Pavlovskoye, Nepryakhinskoye and Lipovskoye oil and gas fields. This was announced on June 27 by the press service of the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the region.

“Investment project for 6.5 billion rubles. provides for the drilling of new wells, the construction of a 200 km gas pipeline connecting the fields with the Karpenskoye complex gas treatment unit. An 80% increase in gas production is planned,” the statement said.

It is specified that the corresponding agreement between the region and the Diall Alliance was signed within the framework of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2023). In the same place, an agreement was signed with the Artamira company controlled by Diall Alliance, which will invest 2.5 billion rubles. in the development of deposits of the Tavolozhsky subsoil plot in the Saratov region.

According to the SPARK-Interfax database, the beneficiary of Diall Alliance LLC is Arkady Abramovich. The company is owned by Sigma Energy LLC, in which the entrepreneur directly owns 0.01% and controls 99.99% through Sigma Capital. Diall Alliance’s revenue under RAS in 2022 amounted to 2.2 billion rubles, net profit – 279.8 million rubles.

Arkady Abramovich gained control of Diall Alliance in 2013. Then the company Zoltav Resourses from the Cayman Islands, co-owned by the entrepreneur, received control of the British Vostok Energy. The latter owned mining assets in the Saratov region. Sigma Energy became the owner of Diall Alliance at the end of March 2022.

Diall Alliance owns a hydrocarbon production license for the Onboard subsoil area, which is valid until the end of 2050. The onboard area is located along the northern border of the Caspian oil and gas province. Proved and probable hydrocarbon reserves are 131.2 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe). Diall Alliance, within the framework of the Vostok project, is currently developing the western part of the Onboard section, which has a complex gas treatment unit.

The profitability of small independent companies in the oil and gas industry as a whole is low, says Dmitry Kasatkin, partner at Kasatkin Consulting. According to him, only individual players who have long-term financial leverage can count on success. Diall Alliance has such a leverage: in 2021, the company entered into a loan agreement with Sberbank for up to 7.7 billion rubles. until 2031 for the development of deposits on the side area, he recalled.

As part of the onboard subsoil area, there are several gas deposits that were discovered during the Soviet era, and they have the potential to expand the resource base through additional exploration of the site, Kasatkin believes. Now gas production within the Onboard area is at the Zhdanovskoye and Karpenskoye fields, but their reserves have already been depleted by 70% and 40%, respectively, so in 2-3 years their production will become unprofitable, adds Kasatkin, citing company data. In this regard, Diall Alliance previously developed a plan for commissioning new fields at the site, but so far is lagging behind it: the Pavlovskoye field was supposed to be put into operation in February 2022, Lipovskoye – in July 2022, Nepryakhinskoye – in March 2023 Two more fields, Mokrousovskoye and Zapadno-Lipovskoye, are planned to be commissioned in 2028 and 2030, respectively.

Independent producing companies now have the same problems as large oil companies: logistics, exports, prices within the country and on the foreign market, the creation of national benchmarks to determine the real cost of oil, the general director of the association of small independent oil and gas companies Assoneft told Vedomosti ( includes more than 60 companies) Elena Korzun. Also, for independent companies, according to her, the issue of stimulating the development of small and extra-small oil fields is important. In April 2023, Assoneft applied to the Ministry of Finance with a request to allocate such fields to a separate group of additional income tax (ATT) or provide them with mineral extraction tax benefits (Vedomosti wrote about this on April 25).