Panalpina Opens Office In Murmansk, Russia

Panalpina is opening an office in the Russian city of Murmansk, located close to the country’s borders with Norway and Finland. The company has been focusing on this area for many years, primarily because of Shtokman Gas Field Development. Being the world’s largest natural gas field, Shtokman was discovered in 1988, and since 1992 Sevmorneftegaz, a joint venture of Russian energy companies Gazprom and Rosneft, has been holding the license to operate the field. The field’s reserves are estimated at 3.8 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and more than 37 million tons of gas condensate.

The field is of strategic importance for Gazprom and will become a resource base for Russian pipeline gas as well as liquefied natural gas exports to the Atlantic Basin markets. The shareholders (Russia’s Gazprom – 51%, France’s TOTAL – 25%, Norway’s StatoilHydro – 24%) sanctioned a multi-billion development program. The field will be developed by Shtokman Development AG.