The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company's Management Committee and Helge Lund, President and Chief Executive Officer of Statoil.

The parties discussed the situation in the European energy market and shared an opinion that sustained gas supplies by traditional exporters – Russia and Norway – were assuming paramount importance in the present context. On its part, Gazprom makes every effort to provide Europe with reliable gas supplies: the offshore Nord Stream gas pipeline is under construction and the South Stream project is being actively implemented. Timely delivery of the Shtokman project being jointly executed by Gazprom, Statoil and Total becomes of prime importance as well.

Background

Oil and gas exploration and production are the core businesses of Statoil. The company has been producing hydrocarbons on the Norwegian continental shelf for over 35 years now and is the pioneer in offshore projects implementation in harsh climatic conditions.

The Norwegian government is the major shareholder of Statoil (67 per cent).

Together with French Total, Statoil partners Gazprom in the Shtokman project implementation.

In February 2008 Gazprom, Total and Statoil (StatoilHydro then) signed the Shareholder Agreement on establishing Shtokman Development AG, a special-purpose company to engineer, design, construct, finance and operate Phase 1 facilities intended for the Shtokman field development.

Shtokman Development AG will own Shtokman Phase 1 infrastructure for 25 years, starting from the date on which the field is brought onstream.