A Board of Directors’ meeting is being held at Gazprom’s Headquarters.

The Board of Directors approved Gazprom’s Draft Budget (Financial Plan) and Investment Program for 2005-2006.

Gazprom’s Draft Balance of Payments for 2005 envisages for:

• The gross gas production (including by the companies Gazprom has shareholdings in) accounting for 545 bcm;
• The average gas export price (in the CIS countries, inclusive) to be USD 116.9 per 1 thousand cubic meters;
• The Investment Program totaling RUR 258.6 billion;
• The fulfillment of commitments (including, repayment of credits, loans and promissory notes as well as interest and coupon payments) to the amount of RUR 120.6 billion;
• The financial borrowings to the tune of RUR 110 billion;
• The US dollar exchange rate to be 29.8 rubles per dollar;
• The total amount of revenues accounting for RUR 1,344.8 billion (116.2% on the 2004 target);
• The budgetary surplus amounting to RUR 6.4 billion.

Gazprom’s Draft Balance of Payments for 2006 envisages for:

• The gross gas production (including by the companies Gazprom has shareholdings in) accounting for 548 bcm;
• The average gas export price (in the CIS countries, inclusive) to be USD 115.1 per 1 thousand cubic meters;
• The Investment Program totaling RUR 277.0 billion;
• The fulfillment of commitments (including, repayment of credits, loans and promissory notes as well as interest and coupon payments) to the amount of RUR 96 billion;
• The financial borrowings to the tune of RUR 90 billion;
• The US dollar exchange rate to be 30.4 rubles per dollar;
• The total amount of revenues accounting for RUR 1,443.1 billion (107.3% on the 2005 target);
• The budgetary surplus amounting to RUR 8.0 billion.

The financial borrowings amount declines in the Draft Balances of Payments under the Company’s Principles of taking long-term borrowings up to 2013, approved by the Board of Directors on 25 February 2004.

The 2005 Cost Reduction Program will enable Gazprom to economize RUR 20 billion and RUR 15 billion, in 2006. The main steps to be implemented to reduce costs are contest-based awards of contracts and introduction of advanced technologies, equipment and materials.

The 2005-2006 Investment Program highlights the corporate investment priorities linked with the gas transmission infrastructure to provide secure gas exports. Within the Investment Program, Gazprom will keep on implementing the Projects on:

• The Tyumen Region’s Northern Areas – Torzhok gas pipeline;
• The Yamal – Europe gas pipeline system;
• The Zapolyarnoye – Urengoi gas pipeline system;
• Extending the Urengoi gas transmission network.

In implementing the main gas production investment projects, Gazprom intends to furnish:

• The Zapolyarnoye field;
• The Pestsovoye field;
• The Yety-Purovskoye field;
• The Aneryakhinskaya and Kharvutinskaya areas of the Yamburgskoye field;
• The Bovanenkovskoye and Kharasaveiskoye gas condensate fields.

To develop the Company’s resource base, Gazprom plans to intensify prospecting, primarily, in the Nadym-Pur-Taz region, including offshore territories of the Ob and Taz Bays and the shelf of the Pechora and Kara Seas; as well as in the Krasnoyarsk Area, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Caspian Trough.

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