Headed by Alexey Miller, Gazprom’s Management Committee Chairman, Gazprom’s delegation today paid a working visit to Turkey, holding meetings with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish Prime Minister and Mehmet Hilmi Guler, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister.

The meetings addressed a wide spectrum of issues on interaction between Russia and Turkey in the gas industry, focusing on the outlook of further cooperation deepening.

In particular, the parties debated potential attraction of Gazprom’s investments into the Turkish power sector, gas transmission & distribution infrastructure and underground gas storage facilities.

Special emphasis was laid upon the Turkish gas market liberalization. The participants expressed a common opinion that said liberalization must not contradict the principle of long-term gas contracts concluded within inter-governmental agreements as well as must promote mutual interests and reliability & safety of gas deliveries to Turkey.

Alexey Miller, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Mehmet Hilmi Guler highly appraised the dynamically developing Russian-Turkish cooperation in the gas business, backed by secure Russian gas deliveries and long-lasting mutually beneficial cooperation.

Reference:

Russian-Turkish cooperation in the gas industry traces its origins back to 1984 when the Governments of the Turkish Republic and USSR entered into an Agreement on natural gas supplies to Turkey. A total of some 105.8 bcm of natural gas delivered by the Trans-Balkans and Blue Stream gas pipelines was exported from Russia to Turkey between 1987 through 2003.

Russian gas exports to Turkey are on an annual rise, increasing in 2003 by some 6% to 12.9 bcm.

Constructed within the Inter-Governmental Russian-Turkish Agreement dated 15 December 1997, the Blue Stream gas pipeline is the most promising Russia and Turkey’s gas project.

The Blue Stream gas pipeline is designed for direct Russian natural gas deliveries to Turkey under the Black Sea and is an addition to the existing gas transmission corridor from Russia to Turkey via the Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania and Bulgaria. Gas shipments by the Blue Stream pipeline substantially bolster secure gas supplies to Turkey and establish additional pre-requisites for said country’s gas market and infrastructure development. In 2003, the Blue Stream pipeline carried 1.3 bcm of Russian gas scheduled to be increased by 2 bcm in 2004.

DIVISION OF RELATIONS WITH MASS MEDIA