Gazprom’s Headquarters hosted a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Gazprom’s Management Committee Chairman and Ivan Malakhov, Governor of the Sakhalin Region.

The meeting addressed potential development of the East Siberian and Far Eastern gas industry as well as Gazprom’s involvement in projects on the Sakhalin Island oil and gas fields development.

Alexey Miller and Ivan Malakhov particularly underscored that the implementation of Sakhalin projects was an integral part of the State-run Program on comprehensive exploitation of resources in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. Russian gas deliveries should be preferentially targeted at meeting gas demand of domestic customers, inclluding the residential, manufacturing and power generation sectors.

To access Asian-Pacific gas markets, resource bases of Sakhalin projects and promising projects in Yakutia need to be unified, with the same approach to be implemented towards the Irkutsk region and Krasnoyarsk area in the future.

As it was pointed out, natural gas shipments from the Sakhalin must be channeled through the existing gas transportation corridor by the onshore Sakhalin-Komsomolsk-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok-Nakhodka gas pipeline.

In the participants’ opinion, said pipeline construction will be the 1st stage in establishing an integrated gas production and transmission network of Eastern Siberia and the Far East as well as will strongly bolster economic expansion of eastern Russia.

Alexey Miller and Ivan Malakhov also debated the progress in the development of the 1st Draft long-term Agreement on cooperation between Gazprom and the Sakhalin Region. According to Ivan Malakhov, “Gazprom’s return to the Sakhalin will be of crucial importance for the region that will render all necessary assistance to the Company.”

Reference:

Russia’s Energy Strategy to 2020 pursues the objective of setting up and developing a new large gas production center in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. Under the Russian Federation Government’s Directive dated 16 July 2002, Gazprom has been serving as coordinator of the Program on exploitation of gas resources in Eastern Siberia and the Far East, in creating a gas supply system in eastern Russia and ensuring gas exports to Asia Pacific.

DIVISION OF RELATIONS WITH MASS MEDIA