The extraordinary General Shareholders Meeting of Gazprom commenced today in Moscow. Shareholders from Russia and a number of foreign countries are taking part in the Meeting personally, through their trustees or in absentia. The Meeting participants represent the interests of the shareholders owning a total of 17,957,034,760 shares, which is 75.85 per cent of the overall number. As of May 12, 2011 the corporate Register of persons and legal entities entitled to participate in the Shareholders Meeting recorded 527,294 corporate equity owners with 23,673,512,900 shares.

The extraordinary General Shareholders Meeting convocation is conditioned by the need to fulfill the assignments by the Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev to replace government officials on boards of directors in open joint stock companies with independent or representative directors.

AlexeyMiller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee was appointed Chairman of the Shareholders Meeting according to the decision by the Gazprom Board of Directors. Taking part in the Meeting are Members of the Gazprom Board of Directors.

The meeting agenda includes the following items:

• On early resignation of the Gazprom Board of Directors Members;
• On election of the Gazprom Board of Directors Members.