The Gazprom Headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company’s Management Committee and Klaus-Ewald Holst, Chairman of the Executive Board of Verbundnetz Gas AG.

The parties discussed the issues related to Russian natural gas supplies to Germany and Verbundnetz Gas AG activities.

“Since mid-2009 Gazprom has been observing a sustainable gas demand growth on the key markets. This November the amount of natural gas supplies to European consumers was considerably higher than in the same period of 2008. Thus, daily gas offtake exceeded last year's indicators by nearly 50 per cent (170 million cubic meters per day) on certain days. As of November 18, an increase in Gazprom’s gas sales in Europe versus last November averaged over 37 per cent. A sustainable growth is observed in Russia as well. Since early November Russian consumers have been supplied with additional 8 per cent if compared to the same period of the last year. Daily gas consumption was up to 20 per cent higher on certain days,” Alexey Miller noted at the meeting.

Background:

Established in 1969, Verbundnetz Gas AG (VNG AG) (Leipzig) is a supplier of gas to Germany’s eastern federal lands and Berlin. VNG core business activities involve natural gas import, supply to consumers as well as underground storage.

At present, the company’s shareholders are as follows: EWE – 47.9 per cent, Wintershall Holding AG – 15.79 per cent plus one share, VNG Verwaltungs und Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH – 25.79 per cent minus one share, EEG – 5.26 per cent, Gazprom – 5.26 per cent.

In April 2008 the companies inked the Agreement of Cooperation in the underground gas storage sector, according to which they would establish a gas storage company that would operate a new UGS facility near Bernburg (Saxonia-Anhalt, Germany). Later on this facility was named Katharina. In May 2009 Gazprom and VNG signed the Agreement to set up a consortium to construct the Katharina UGS facility.

Construction work is to start in 2010. The facility will be brought to its projected capacity in 2024. The active storage capacity will exceed 597 billion cubic meters of gas.