Today the Company’s Headquarters hosted a meeting moderated by Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee on the Shtokman gas and condensate field development.

Participating in the meeting were Vasily Podyuk, Member of the Gazprom Management Committee, Head of the Gas, Gas Condensate and Oil Production Department, heads and specialists of the relevant structural units of Gazprom, as well as Gazprom dobycha shelf, Gazflot, Gazprom VNIIGAZ, Giprospetsgaz, Gazprom export and Shtokman Development AG.

The meeting participants discussed the progress with the Shtokman project implementation, as well as the issues related to optimization of technical and technological solutions within the first phase of the Shtokman field development, particularly, gas condensate transmission and storage.

Based on the meeting results, the relevant structural units of Gazprom and the Company’s subsidiaries were assigned the respective tasks.

Background:

The Shtokman field is situated in the central region of the Russian sector of the Barents Sea.

In October 2009 the State Commission for Mineral Resources under the Federal Subsurface Use Agency revised and updated the Shtokman field reserves.

The field’s C1 reserves make up 3.8 trillion cubic meters of gas and 53.3 million tons of gas condensate (a 71 per cent increase versus the previous level of C1+C2 gas condensate reserves).

An increase in gas condensate reserves was based on the field's geological model updated in the processes of geological exploration and acquiring new data on potential condensate content in gas.

The Shtokman gas and condensate field development project is of strategic importance for Gazprom. The field will become a resource base for deliveries of Russian gas – both pipeline and LNG – to the Atlantic basin markets.

Gazprom neft shelf (former Sevmorneftegaz), a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom, holds the gas and gas condensate exploration and production license for the Shtokman field.

Gazprom determined Total (France) and StatoilHydro (Norway) as partners to execute the Shtokman project.

In February 2008 Gazprom, Total and StatoilHydro signed the Shareholder Agreement on establishing Shtokman Development AG, a special-purpose company to implement the engineering, development, construction, financing, and operation of the first phase facilities intended for the Shtokman field development.

The special-purpose company will own the infrastructure of the first phase of the Shtokman field for 25 years, starting from the field commissioning date.

In 2008 the Vyborg Shipbuilding Plant launched the construction of two semi-submersible drilling rigs to drill production wells in the Shtokman field.

Designed for operation in severe climate conditions, the Polyarnaya Zvezda and Severnoye Siyanie platforms can resist low temperature and the waves up to 32 meters high, perform exploratory and production drilling of gas and oil wells reaching 7,500 meters at water depth of 70–500 meters.

The first semi-submersible drilling rig is to be constructed in the fourth quarter of 2010, the second one – in the first quarter of 2011.