Today, Alexey Miller, Gazprom’s Management Committee Chairman has endorsed a short-list of companies – potential partners of Gazprom in executing the first phase of the Shtokman gas condensate field development project, including the construction of a natural gas liquefaction plant.

As announced earlier, between 2004 and 2005 Gazprom has sealed a string of memoranda with prominent energy firms that brought forward their technical & commercial support packages for the project, containing Shtokman field development options, proposals on potential swaps of assets being of interest for Gazprom and expected share of the project. All the packages submitted fitted with the requirements set out by Gazprom.

After performing an analysis of the suggested project timing, preliminary commercial packages and bidders’ track record of similar projects, Gazprom has come up with a short-list of companies to be invited for intense commercial talks:

- Statoil (Norway);

- Total (France);

- Chevron (USA);

- Hydro (Norway);

- ConocoPhillips (USA).

In the first quarter of 2006, Gazprom is resolute to select two or three companies that will form a consortium for the Shtokman project implementation.

Reference:

Memoranda of understanding have been sealed by Gazprom with Statoil, Hydro, Shell, Total, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and ExxonMobil to perform a survey study for potential joint development of the Shtokman gas condensate field and identification of strategic project partners.

The Shtokman gas condensate field is located in the central Russian sector of the Barents Sea offshore, 290 km west of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago and 650 km from the port of the Murmansk city – the Murmansk region’s center.

With four gas condensate reservoirs discovered and productive strata depth being in the 1,813 – 2,479 m bracket, the field tapped gas and condensate reserves account for 3.2 tcm and 30.97 mln t, respectively.

A study of potential location sites for a natural gas liquefaction plant and options for gas transmission, regasification and marketing in the USA has been performed within the memoranda execution.

DIVISION OF RELATIONS WITH MASS MEDIA