The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company's Management Committee and Samo Omerzel, Minister of Infrastructure and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia.

The parties discussed issues concerning the current status of cooperation between Russia and Slovenia in the gas sector.

Special attention was paid to the South Stream project implementation in the Republic of Slovenia. At present, the work is nearing completion on the spatial planning and environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedures conducted under the national laws of Slovenia for the gas pipeline sections from the boarders with Hungary and Italy.

The meeting resulted in the decision to speed up the designing of the Slovenian section of the gas pipeline carried out by the South Stream Slovenia LLC joint company.

Background

Russian natural gas has been supplied to Slovenia since 1978.

In 2012 Gazprom supplied Slovenia with 0.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The current contract is effective through 2017.

Plinovodi d.o.o. is the sole natural gas importer in Slovenia. The company is focused on natural gas transmission, distribution and storage in Slovenia.

With a view to diversify the natural gas export routes Gazprom is implementing a project for the construction of a gas pipeline running under the Black Sea to the countries of Southern and Central Europe – the South Stream project. Intergovernmental agreements were signed with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia and Croatia in order to implement the onshore gas pipeline section.

On May 27, 2010 Gazprom and Plinovodi d.o.o. signed the Feasibility Study Agreement for the South Stream section in Slovenia.

On March 22, 2011 Gazprom and Plinovodi d.o.o. signed the Shareholders Agreement on South Stream Slovenia LLC – a joint project company set up on a parity basis to implement the South Stream project in Slovenia. South Stream Slovenia LLC deals with the preparation of project documents, fundraising, construction and operation of the gas pipeline in Slovenia.

On February 27, 2012 a Supplementary Agreement to the South Stream Slovenia LLC Shareholders Agreement was signed. The document defines the layout and parameters of the gas pipeline's Slovenian section that were defined on the basis of the Consolidated Feasibility Study performed for the project.

On September 05, 2012 a joint project company – South Stream Slovenia LLC – was registered in Ljubljana.

On November 13, 2012 the Final Investment Decision on building the Slovenian section of the South Stream gas pipeline was adopted.