Today in Amsterdam Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Jorma Ollila, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Royal Dutch Shell signed in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte a Memorandum outlining the principles of cooperation within hydrocarbons exploration and development in Russia's Arctic shelf and a section of deep-water shelf abroad.

“Gazprom and Shell already partner in the Russian shelf development. The new accords enable us to explore the potential of our joint capabilities,” said Alexey Miller.

Moreover, today in Amsterdam Alexander Dyukov, Chairman of the Gazprom Neft Management Committee and Andrew Brown, Upstream International Director signed a Memorandum of Acknowledgement of the General Cooperation Agreement on shale oil exploration and production.

According to the Agreement, the parties will set up a joint venture to deal with new projects for oil shale exploration and development in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Area. The joint venture where each company will hold a 50 per cent stake will be registered in Saint Petersburg. Besides, Gazprom Neft and Shell assume that Salym Petroleum Development with shareholding split on a parity basis will operate new projects at the first stage of cooperation.

The new joint venture will enable partners to create a competence center on oil shale development in Russia and provide for increasing the technology level of the Russian oil industry.

“The agreements reached bring our partnership to a new level. Our companies already have the experience of long-lasting successful work within the Sakhalin II and Salym projects, and we welcome the opportunity to use this experience and our innovation technologies in Arctic operations and shale oil development,” said Peter Voser, Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell.

Background

Shell is a British-Dutch petroleum company focused on hydrocarbons production, processing and marketing in over 90 countries of the world.

On November 30, 2010 Gazprom and Shell signed the Protocol on Global Strategic Cooperation providing for a wider interaction of the companies in hydrocarbons exploration, production, processing and distribution in Russian and international energy markets.

On June 16, 2011 Gazprom Neft and Shell signed the Basic Terms and Conditions of the Agreement which stipulates the study of possible ways to create a joint venture to deliver joint projects in Western Siberia, other Russian regions and in third countries.