June 02, 2007	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1428

MOSCOW, June 1: Russian regulators on Friday delayed a hotly anticipated decision on whether to withdraw British-Russian oil major TNK-BP’s right to develop a vast Siberian gas field, the company said.

“The decision is delayed, nothing has been decided on Kovykta today,” TNK-BP spokeswoman Marina Dracheva said, referring to the gas field that regulators have threatened to take away from a TNK-BP subsidiary.

Subsoil agency Rosnedra ruled earlier on Friday that the subsidiary, RUSIA Petroleum, had violated its license terms for the field by failing to raise production to required levels after a warning 90 days ago, Interfax reported.

The ruling, which could have brought an immediate removal of the license, looked likely to wrest control of the two-billion-dollar field from TNK-BP and put it the hands of state gas monopoly Gazprom.

Russian news agencies quoted unnamed sources close to Rosnedra as saying that a final decision on the license would be made in two weeks.—AFP