Today in Rome Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Dr. Jürgen Grossmann, CEO of RWE signed a Memorandum of Understanding on strategic partnership in power generation in Europe. It also affirms the companies' intentions to conclude the ongoing commercial negotiations to a mutually satisfactory result.

In order to implement these considerations RWE and Gazprom will enter into negotiations. The subject of these negotiations is the possible formation of a Joint Venture which shall consist of existing or newly built gas and coal power plants in Germany, United Kingdom and the Benelux.

“The power industry is one of the priorities of Gazprom in Europe. In light of recent decisions by the German government to reduce their nuclear power programs, we see good prospects for the construction of new modern gas fired power plants in Germany. The signed Memorandum provides RWE with exclusive rights for negotiations with Gazprom on the implementation of energy projects in Germany, UK and the Benelux countries for a period of three months,” said Alexey Miller.

“This MoU, when put into commercial reality, could secure safe and competitive natural gas supply to RWE. It can furthermore provide for potential partnerships in coal and gas fired power plants inside and outside Germany and thus lead to mutually fruitful common growth opportunities,” said Jürgen Grossmann.

Background

RWE is a leading German company in the field of power and natural gas production and marketing.

At present, natural gas reserves of RWE amount to 179.4 billion cubic meters. In 2010 the company produced 2.7 billion cubic meters and sold 38.4 billion cubic meters of gas.