Gazprom forecasts 2011 production at 520 bcm

Russian gas giant Gazprom expects to produce 520 billion cubic meters of gas in 2011, up from 515 bcm last year, Vsevolod Cherepanov, head of gas, gas condensate and oil production, said on Wednesday."Our forecast stands at 520 bcm," Cherepanov told reporters, adding that the company expects output in 2012 at about the same level.Cherepanov also said Gazprom was likely to receive a license for the giant Kovykta field in East Siberia at the end of September or the beginning of October."We have not received the license yet. We expect it by the end of September or the beginning of October," he said.The company said in June that its resource base in the Irkutsk region in Siberia comprised 1.6 trillion cm of gas at the Kovykta field, 400 bcm in the South Kovykta area and 100 bcm at the Chikanskoye gas field.Gazprom also expects reserves of the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field of the Sakhalin-3 oil and gas project in Russia's Far East to grow to 360 bcm of gas from the current 260 bcm after geological exploration."We expect reserves to increase by 50 to 100 bcm ... to about 360 bcm," Cherepanov told reporters.The gas giant also plans to make an investment decision on oil and gas production at the Chayandinskoye field in Yakutia later this year or at the beginning of 2012. Reserves at the field amount to 1.24 trillion cm of gas and 68.4 million tons of oil and condensate.