Today in Moscow as part of the Russia-Italy Forum Alexey Miller, Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee and Paolo Scaroni, Chief Executive Officer of ENI signed a purchase-and-sale agreement for a 20% stake in Gazprom Neft. Therefore Gazprom has implemented its option reached between the two companies in April 2007.

According to the documents, Gazprom’s share in Gazprom Neft has climbed to 95.68%. The deal is worth around 4.1 million USD and will be financed by Gazprom taking out loans from a number of Russian banks.

Alexey Miller and Paolo Scaroni agreed that signing this document is yet another example of the constructive relationship between Russia and Italy and that it expands the prospects for further growth in the countries’ energy partnership.

Gazprom, ENI and Enel also reached an agreement to extend the timetable for implementing Gazprom’s acquisition option of a 51% share in SeverEnergy until May 30th, 2009.

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Italy is the third largest importer of Russian gas in Europe. Preliminary data shows that Gazprom supplied Italy with more than 22 billion cubic meters of gas in 2008.

In November 2006 Gazprom and ENI entered into the Strategic Partnership Agreement providing Gazprom with the opportunity to directly supply Russian gas to the Italian market starting from 2007. Gas supply volumes are gradually increasing to 3 billion cubic meters per annum by 2010. Under the Agreement the existing contracts for Russian gas supplies to Italy have been extended till 2035.

In April 2007 as part of the Strategic Partnership Agreement, Gazprom entered with ENI and Enel into the Call Option Agreement to acquire assets included in lot 2 of the auction for YUKOS property with a timetable of two years.

The auction resulted in SeverEnergia’s (former EniNeftegaz), a consortium between Enel and ENI, purchasing the following assets: Arcticgaz (100%), Urengoil (100%), Neftegaztekhnologiya (100%), Gazprom neft (20%). Subsequently, Gazprom neft’s assets (20%) were delivered to a wholly owned subsidiary of ENI.