Led by Valery Golubev, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, a Gazprom delegation today undertook a business trip to the Arkhangelsk Oblast.

In the course of the trip Arkhangelsk hosted a meeting covering issues with regard to regional gasification and construction of a gas pipeline branch to Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk. The meeting was co-chaired by Valery Golubev, Vladimir Voykov, First Deputy Head of the Arkhangelsk Oblast Administration and Sergey Zimin, Department Head with the Office of the Plenipotentiary Envoy of the Russian Federation President to the Northwest Federal District. Present at the meeting were heads and specialists of Gazprom core business units and subsidiaries, Arkhangelsk Oblast Administration, local authorities and companies.

It was pointed out that the gasification activities implemented by Gazprom in conjunction with the regional authorities were in line with the preset schedules. 400 km of the gas pipeline branch laid until now to Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk have enabled to gasify Velsk, Mirny and other population centres, supply natural gas to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome and raise the total gasification level in the region.

“Gazprom places big emphasis on the socioeconomic development of the Arkhangelsk Oblast. Between 2005 and 2007 the Company allocated over RUR1 bln to gasify the region. During that period 141 km of inter-settlement pipelines were constructed. We intend to go beyond the achieved levels and contribute, thus, to increasing the number of gas consumers in the region. In particular, Gazprom’s investment into the regional gasification will exceed RUR 0.5 bln in 2008, emphasized Valery Golubev.

The meeting resulted in the taking of decisions aimed at further gasification of the Arkhangelsk Oblast, including fulfillment of the 2008 synchronized construction schedule for regional gasification facilities and completion of the gas pipeline branch to Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk.

Today the Gazprom delegation also visited Severodvinsk based shipbuilding companies with Gazprom’s orders in place. The delegation got acquainted with the progress in the construction of the Prirazlomnaya offshore ice-resistant stationary platform at FSUE PO Sevmash and the Arkticheskaya jack-up floating drilling rig at FSUE MP Zvezdochka to be applied for the Arctic shelf development. Upon visiting Sevmash and Zvezdochka, Valery Golubev pointed out that the role of domestic machine-builders in the gas industry development would go on increasing and that Gazprom intended to further assist those companies in turning out competitive and technology intensive products.

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The Cooperation Agreement between Gazprom and the Arkhangelsk Oblast Administration was signed in 2004, the Accord on Gasification – in 2006.

The overall gasification level of the Arkhangelsk Oblast is 9.8 per cent including 13 per cent in cities, towns and settlements and 1.9% in rural areas. The identical rates throughout Russian regions average 62, 67 and 44 per cent respectively.

Construction of the pipeline branch from the Ukhta-Torzhok gas trunkline system (Nyuksenitsa compressor station) to Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk has been progressing since 1988. The pipeline branch length will be 642.7 km, throughput capacity planned by 2010 – over 2.5 bcm. Full capacity – 3.3 bcm per annum.