Hydro chief executive Eivind Reiten said combining StatoilHydro ended competition between Statoil and Hydro that would have undermined talks with Gazprom on a deal for the Arctic gas field Sthokman.

“It was a matter of time before the advantages of competition with Statoil became a disadvantage,” Reiten told reporters at an Oslo breakfast. He said the October 1st union of Statoil and Hydro lets the new entity “play the Norwegian card more effectively”.

He said he was now “optimistic” dialogue would give StatoilHydro a technology deal for a stake in the management company Gazprom has set up to run the 3.7-trillion-cubic-metre field development. He said he could not comment on re-sell amounts for that gas ahead of an agreement and his becoming StatoilHydro chair after the fusion.

Gazprom, meanwhile, was behaving like a national oil company: “This is the time of the national oil companies”, and they are “true giants” of an era he said would last beyond 2020. National champions will play a “crucial” role as “nations see the value of the resources they have”.

“I don’t think (countries) can come up with a sufficiently good tax system to capture the real value of those resources,” he said.

On Arctic development generally, Reiten showed closeness to the issues of ecosystems and global warming. “I believe as you go closer to the ice flows, the (ecosystem) sensitivity increases faster than the need for energy,” he said, warning that we “don’t know enough about how (the Arctic) works.

He warned against “the misconception” that crossing the Arctic border in Russia brought one into to an area of polluted waters and waste.

“The experts in St. Petersburg are the best (Arctic ice) experts in the world,” he commented.

Reiten appeared to be giving parting comments from the standpoint of Hydro oil and gas ahead of the October merger that renders the rump Hydro an aluminium company.

Recent Gazprom and Murmansk Oblast comments have hinted that a decision was imminent on whether to use StatoilHydro in the Shtokman consortia or go with American help, after giving Total of France 25 percent earlier this summer.

ws@scandoil.com

Tags: Shtokman