Gazprom’s Headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Gazprom’s Management Committee Chairman and Viktor Vekselberg, TNK-BP’s Chief Operating Officer.

The meeting addressed issues concerning the implementation of the Program on setting up in Eastern Siberia and the Far East a united gas production and transmission network as well as the Kovyktinskoye field development prospects.

Alexey Miller underscored that “the Sakhalin Island offshore developments were paramount projects to be implemented within the Program”. “This strategy is economically viable since there’s a range of projects already being or to be shortly implemented in said region. Moreover, we’ve so far managed to conclude a string of gas export contracts,” – Alexey Miller was quoted as saying.

Alexey Miller informed Viktor Vekselberg of the progress in Gazprom’s prospecting in Eastern Siberia and the Far East and, in particular, of Krasnoyarskgazprom’s additional exploration of the Beryambinsky play.

“Exploratory drilling has yielded fruits. We expect our assumptions of large gas reserves in this exploration area to come true”, - pointed out A. Miller.

Viktor Vekselberg expressed his hope that, due to Rosneft’s merger with Gazprom, the latter company and TNK-BP might come up with new joint promising projects in Eastern Siberia and the Far East.

Reference:

The initial onshore gas reserves of Eastern Siberia and the Far East total 44.8 tcm, including 32.9 tcm, in Eastern Siberia and 11.9 tcm, in the Far East, accounting for some 19% of Russia’s initial overall natural resources.

An insignificant extent of the East Siberian and Far Eastern potential exploration (a total of 8.3%) points to high prospects of stock-piling new reserves to launch large-scale gas production in this region. The explored reserves are forecasted to grow by 6.1 tcm of gas over 2004 to 2030.

Krasnoyarskgazprom, a Krasnoyarsk area-based Gazprom subsidiary, owns a prospecting license (Beryambinsky play) and 2 hydrocarbon exploration and production licenses (Omorinsky and Sabinsky plays).

In addition, Gazprom holds 2 prospecting licenses valid until 2008 (South Kovykta Western and Eastern plays) in the Irkutsk region.

The Kovyktinskoye gas condensate field is located in the Irkutsk region, 450 km northeast off the city of Irkutsk. The field natural gas reserves are valued at 1.9 tcm.

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