Rosneft and The World Bank signed an emission reduction purchase agreement on units, accumulated as a part of the associated gas utilization project in the Rosneft Komsomolskoye oil field in Yamal-Nenez autonomous region. The oil field is being developed by the Rosneft’s subsidiary — Rn-Purneftegaz. The World Bank acted on behalf of the European, Danish, Italian and Spanish Carbon Funds respectively. During the period of 2008–2012 Rosneft is prepared to allocate a minimum 5.32 million ERUs in the above-mentioned Funds (one ERU equals one tone of CO2).

The World Bank, owned by 185 member-states, will formalize transactions with ERUs, as well as will monitor and control compliance with procedures governing project implementation.

The infrastructure building program required for the associated gas processing and transmission on the Komsomolskoye field is aimed to increase the level of the gas utilization within Russian and international procedures as the part of the Kyoto protocol implementation. By this project the gas from the Komsomolskoye field will be transmitted to the Gasprom unified gas supply system.

In accordance with the Russian government decree ¹ 322 experts from Rosneft prepared the required set of documents to the project application review commission by the Ministry of the Economic development within the article 6 of Kyoto protocol.

Rosneft is prepared to invest about 4 billion rubles at this stage of its gas utilization project. Additional ERU purchase agreements could help increase the economic efficiency of production in the framework of the project.

The Kyoto protocol is an international legal document adopted in Kyoto (Japan) in December 1997 as the addendum to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was then ratified by more over than 160 states with the overall responsibility for the 60% of the global emission into the atmosphere. On February 16, 2005 the Federal Law on ratification of the Kyoto protocol was approved. Russia has committed to maintain its annual emissions at the level of 90s in the course of 2008–2012.

The protocol provides for the so called flexible mechanisms. It also includes trading in quotas. Countries and companies located in such countries can purchase and trade greenhouse gas emission quotas on the national, regional and international markets.