Today Seoul has hosted a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Lee Soo Ho, President & Chief Executive Officer of KOGAS Korea Gas Corporation.

The parties underlined the importance of the Intergovernmental Agreement for gas deliveries to Korea signed today, which creates necessary conditions for the launch of negotiations between Gazprom and KOGAS about Russian gas export.

At the meeting the parties discussed issues in relation to the organization of pipeline gas shipments to the Republic Korea beginning in 2012-13 as well as possibilities of executing swap and spot liquefied & compressed natural gas deals at an earlier stage.

KOGAS’ representatives highlighted the basic approaches to promoting the following joint businesses: trading in LNG, setting up natural gas liquefaction capacities in eastern Russia, introducing new technologies to produce synthetic fuels from natural gas (GTL and DME technologies) as well as joint gas exploration, production and marketing in third countries.

The Russian delegation pointed, on its side, to the promising directions of interaction with KOGAS in eastern Russia, including natural gas and derivatives marketing in the Republic of Korea and other countries of Asia Pacific.

Alexey Miller and Lee Soo Ho emphasized a high potential of interaction in developing eastern Russia’s gas industry and agreed to shortly continue discussing possible cooperation areas within the joint Working Group.

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At present, the Republic of Korea is almost fully dependent on LNG imports. The South Korean gas market is featured by a manifold gas transmission network linking onshore LNG terminals with major consumption provinces, which helps widely use natural gas both in the power generation and industrial & household sectors.

Founded in 1983, KOGAS Korea Gas Corporation is a 62 per cent state-run company. KOGAS’ major business lines are construction and operation of LNG import terminals and gas distribution stations, implementation of international gas projects and research for the gas industry. The company owns three LNG import terminals.

On May 12, 2003, Gazprom and KOGAS entered into a five-year Agreement of cooperation. The Agreement covers a broad spectrum of issues including potential deliveries of Russian natural gas to the Republic of Korea.

To implement the Agreement, the parties set up a permanent joint Working Group.