Today, within the Agreement of Cooperation between Gazprom and the Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) the Republic of Korea hosted a regular – the seventh meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) of Gazprom and KOGAS.

The meeting was moderated by the JWG Co-Chairmen – Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Lee Byung-Ho, Senior Executive Vice President of KOGAS.

As an important factor for the consecutive development of the bilateral relations the parties emphasized the Memorandum of Understanding signed between Gazprom and KOGAS as part of the high-profile meeting in September 2008, Moscow. The Memorandum stipulates the arrangement of natural gas supplies from Russia to the Republic of Korea.

The meeting discussed the issues of implementing the Memorandum provisions.

A focus of the meeting also fell on the companies’ interaction in the personnel training and qualification upgrade, as well as in sci-tech cooperation development.

Based on the meeting results the JWG’s Co-Chairmen authorized specialists and experts with elaborating the relevant issues.

Background:

On May 12, 2003 Gazprom and the Korean KOGAS signed the five-year Agreement of Cooperation, which was extended for another five-year term in 2008. The Agreement embraces a wide spectrum of issues including the exploration of possible ways of supplying Russian natural gas to Korea.

To implement the Agreement the parties set up the standing Joint Working Group. The previous meeting of JWG was held in March 2008 in Moscow.