A regular session of the Coordinating Committee for strategic cooperation between Gazprom and BASF AG (Germany) was held on 9-10 September 2003, at Lentransgaz’s office in St.-Petersburg. The Russian delegation was headed by Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Board of Directors, Co-Chairman of the Coordinating Committee. John Feldmann, Member of BASF AG’s Board headed the German delegation.

The members of the Coordinating Committee listened to the working groups’ reports on the work performed in the frames of the projects that are jointly implemented by Gazprom and Wintershall AG.

Special attention was paid to the progress in developing the Achimov deposits at the Urengoy gas and condensate field. The parties discussed the current situation and made plans for project further implementation.

Another key topic of the discussion was the possibility of cooperation between Gazprom and Wintershall AG in the development of the Turkmen part of the Caspian offshore (Block 1). The members of the Coordinating Committee listened to the report of Boris Nikitin, First Deputy Chief of Gas, Gas condensate and Oil Production Department, on the progress in the project implementation. The participants discussed joint implementation projects on gas marketing in Europe. The parties stressed the necessity to intensify the work on optimization of gas flows and logistics.

In addition, the participants discussed the current state and the outlooks of joint projects in the field of gas processing as well as the results of scientific and technical collaboration.

The participants of the session also listened to the reports of Bogdan Budzulyak, Head of the Department for natural gas transportation, underground storage and utilization, and Boris Kuzmin, Head of the Department for personnel management, on joint efforts in professional training of Gazprom’s personnel.

The members of the Coordinating Committee took part in the XIII Annual International Conference “New high technologies in the gas and oil industry, power production and communications” (CITOGIC’2003) in St.-Petersburg.

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