Stimul’s Annual General Shareholders’ Meeting (AGSM) took place today in the town of Orenburg. Konstantin Chuichenko, Gazprom’s Management Committee Member and Head of Gazprom’s Legal Department was elected as the AGSM Chairman.

Stimul’s shareholders ratified the company’s Annual Report, financial statements and profit and loss account for 2003 as well as Stimul’s newly amended (the 5th edition) Articles of Association.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit was approved as Stimul’s auditor for 2004.

Based on the voting results, the AGSM elected a 5-member Board of Directors. All the Board members are Gazprom’s officers, which is in line with the Cooperation Agreement between Stimul’s principle shareholders.

1. Marat Marselevich Garaev	Head of the Industrial Ouput Marketing Division of Gazprom’s Marketing and Gas & Liquid Hydrocarbons Processing Department
2. Nikolai Nikolaevich Dubik	Deputy Head of Gazprom’s Legal Department
3. Olga Petrovna Pavlova	Gazprom’s Management Committee Member and Head of Gazprom’s Asset Management and Corporate Relations Department
4. Vasily Grigorievich Podyuk	Gazprom’s Management Committee Member and Head of Gazprom’s Gas, Gas Condensate and Oil Production Department
5. Konstantin Anatolievich Chuichenko	Gazprom’s Management Committee Member and Head of Gazprom’s Legal Department

Reference:

The Stimul company was founded in 1995 as a joint venture of Orenburggazprom (51% of shares) and the US-based Avalon International company (49% of shares).

In December 1996, Stimul obtained the license to develop the eastern oil fringe of the Orenburgskoye oil and gas condensate field.

In 2000, a resolution was passed to issue additional shares of Stimul and sell the Avalon International and Victory Oil-controlled stake. Victory Oil is part of the group of companies owned by various trusts of the Getty family.

As a consequence, in 2001, Orenburggazprom and Victory Oil’s share of Stimul accounted for 38.2% and 61.8%, respectively.

On 7 June 2004, Gazprom, Victory Oil and Magnum Oil entered into a number of agreements on Gazprom’s buying into a 12.8% stake of Stimul and mutual settlement of all the arguments among the parties. The Agreements were signed by Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee and Mark Getty. Upon finalization of the transaction, Gazprom and Orenburggazprom’s overall holding in Stimul’s share capital amounted to 51%.

Victory Oil also entered into an agreement on selling 49% of Stimul’s shares to a third-party investor, with which Gazprom adopted a cooperation agreement to promote Stimul’s business and enhance its capitalization.

In 2003, Stimul withdrew 352 thousand tons of oil and gas condensate as well as 240 million cubic meters of natural gas.

Stimul is intensively integrated into Gazprom’s existing infrastructure and provides feedstock to Orenburggazprom and Salavatnefteorgsintez.

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