The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company's Management Committee and Artis Kampars, Latvian Minister of Economics.

The parties addressed the current issues of the Russian-Latvian cooperation in the energy sector appreciating the agreements on increasing the volume of Russian gas supplied to Latvia.

The negotiating parties paid special attention to the EU gas market liberalization and were unanimous in their opinion that the Third Energy Package should be implemented with due regard to the interests of both natural gas exporters and consumers.

Based on the meeting results, Alexey Miller and Artis Kampars underscored the constructive nature of cooperation between Gazprom and Latvijas Gaze, and expressed confidence that the mutually beneficial long-term partnership would be further reinforced.

Background:

Russian natural gas is exported to the Republic of Latvia under the long-term agreement signed by Gazprom and Latvijas Gaze in 1999. In 2009 the agreement for gas supply to Latvian consumers was extended from 2015 to 2030 at Latvijas Gaze's request.

Since 1997 Gazprom has been holding a 34 per cent stake in Latvijas Gaze that is focused on natural gas purchase, transmission, storage and distribution in Latvia. In 2009 Russia supplied some 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas to Latvia.

Gazprom and Latvijas Gaze are jointly operating the Incukalns underground gas storage (UGS) facility aimed at regulating gas supplies to Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Northwestern Russia.