A working meeting was held today in Paris between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom, Helge Lund, President and CEO of Statoil and Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total SA.

The parties exchanged views on the progress of preparations for the Phase 1 of the Shtokman field development, and confirmed their intention to adopt an integrated Final investment decision by the end of 2011.

During the meeting, Alexey Miller, Helge Lund and Christophe de Margerie also discussed issues related to the current and prospective situation on the European gas market, the dynamics of world supply and demand of pipeline gas and LNG.

Background

The Shtokman field is situated in the central part of the Russian sector of the Barents Sea.

C1 reserves of the field make up 3.9 trillion cubic meters of gas and 56 million tons of gas condensate, with 3.9 trillion cubic meters of gas and 53.3 million tons of gas condensate located within Gazprom's licensed area.

The Shtokman gas and condensate field development project is of strategic importance for Gazprom. The project implementation will give a start to a new gas production region in the Arctic shelf of Russia.

The Shtokman field will become a resource base for building up deliveries of Russian gas both by pipeline and in the form of LNG (liquefied natural gas) to domestic and foreign market.

Gazprom neft shelf (former Sevmorneftegaz), a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom, holds the gas and gas condensate exploration and production license for the Shtokman field.

Gazprom partners Total (France) and Statoil (Norway) in the Shtokman project execution.

In February 2008 Gazprom, Total and Statoil (StatoilHydro then) signed the Shareholders 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.