Today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of Gazprom Management Committee and Karim Masimov, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan took place.

The parties addressed issues relevant to gas purchase, supply to and transportation via Kazakhstan and discussed the development prospects for cross-border hydrocarbon fields.

Summing up the meeting the parties underlined the constructive nature of the cooperation between Gazprom and Kazakhstan partners and expressed confidence that the mutually beneficial long-term partnership should be further developed.

Background:

In June 2002 Gazprom and the KazMunaiGaz National Company established on a parity basis and registered in the Republic of Kazakhstan, the KazRosGaz joint venture to deal with natural gas purchase, marketing and processing (at gas treatment plants in Russia), and other businesses.

In June 2007 Gazprom and the KazMunaiGaz National Company signed the Agreement on the major principles for the creation and operation of the joint venture based on the Orenburg GPP.

The core business activity of the joint venture will be rendering of services related to the processing of hydrocarbon resources from the Orenburg Oblast and the Karachaganak field on a processing fee basis.

At present, the Russian sector of the cross-border Imashevskoye gas and condensate field is part of the non-licensed stock of subsurface resources.

TsentrCaspneftegaz, a joint venture of Gazprom and Lukoil is performing exploration activities in the Tsentralnaya structure in the Caspian Sea. Gazprom and Lukoil approached NK KazMunaiGaz with a proposal to create a joint venture that would act as the project operator for the structure.

On May 12, 2007 the Presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan signed the Joint Declaration to build the Precaspian gas pipeline.

On December 20, 2007 the Governments of Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan entered into the Agreement on the Precaspian Gas Pipeline Construction.

The gas pipeline construction is targeted at transporting natural gas from fields in the Caspian Sea and other locations in Turkmenistan and the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Russian Federation.

On July 25, 2008 the Agreement was signed on Gazprom’s participation in investment projects in the gas industry of Turkmenistan. The Agreement stipulates building up the capacity of the Turkmen section of the Precaspian gas pipeline up to 30 billion cubic meters.

The volume of gas transportation through the Precaspian gas pipeline is projected to make up:

- up to 30 billion cubic meters per annum from Turkmenistan;

- up to 10 billion cubic meters per annum from Kazakhstan.

Some 1,700-km-long Precaspian gas pipeline will stretch over 500 km across Turkmenistan and some 1,200 km across Kazakhstan.