The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company’s Management Committee and Lee Youn-ho, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea to Russia.

The parties reviewed interaction in the energy sector placing an emphasis on a potential increase in liquefied natural gas (LNG) volumes supplied by Gazprom to Korea.

The parties also addressed the prospects for cooperation between Russia and Korea in the gas processing and gas chemical sectors in Russia’s Far East as part of the Eastern Gas Program.

Background:

On May 12, 2003 Gazprom and Korea’s Kogas entered into the five-year Agreement of Cooperation, which was extended for another five-year term in 2008. The Agreement embraces a wide spectrum of issues including the study of possible ways to deliver Russian natural gas to Korea.

To implement the Agreement the parties set up the permanent Joint Working Group.

On October 17, 2006 the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Korea signed the Agreement of Cooperation in the Gas Industry, pursuant to which Gazprom and Kogas were identified as authorized companies overseeing natural gas deliveries from Russia to the Republic of Korea.

On September 29, 2008 Gazprom and Kogas signed the Memorandum of Understanding on natural gas supplies from Russia to Korea.

On June 23, 2009 Gazprom and Kogas signed the Agreement to jointly explore the natural gas supply project. The Agreement stipulates studying options of natural gas supply from the final point of the Sakhalin – Khabarovsk – Vladivostok gas transmission system to Korea.

The September 2007 Order by the Russian Federation Industry and Energy Ministry approved the state-run Development Program for an integrated gas production, transportation and supply system in Eastern Siberia and the Far East, taking into account potential gas exports to China and other Asia-Pacific countries (Eastern Gas Program). Gazprom was appointed by the Russian Government as the Program execution coordinator.

As part of the Sakhalin II project the Republic of Korea was supplied with some 2.6 million tons of Russian LNG between 2009 and 2010.