Today at the Gazprom Headquarters, Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Sergey Bogdanchikov, President of Rosneft, signed the Agreement on strategic cooperation.

Pursuant to the accords achieved, Rosneft and Gazprom will develop cooperation in the hydrocarbon exploration, production, transportation and processing sectors; natural and associated gas marketing; electric & thermal power generation and marketing; oil & gas field and power equipment production; development of production capacities and industry’s facilities; SHI-tch, information, ecological, social and staffing support.

Particularly, the document specifies the parties are going to participate in competitions and auctions to get the subsurface use right as well as joint projects development. Rosneft and Gazprom will coordinate activities and exchange the geological information on joint projects within the geological and exploration works as well as geological and geophysical information databases development.

Within the examining of issues on joint projects participation in the sector of geological exploration and development, the parties will have an equal stake in joint projects (Gazprom and Rosneft will own 50 per cent each).

The parties expressed an interest in full cooperation for rational usage of LPG, natural and associated gas in the gas chemical sector and LPG, natural and associated gas usage as an alternative motor fuel; polymeric and elastomeric materials production and other materials produced on the basis of polymeric and elastomeric materials, as well as liquefied synthetic fuel production based on GTL technologies. Gazprom and Rosneft are planning to cooperate in projects for development of gas processing and gas chemical production capacities in Eastern Siberia and the Far East.

In accordance with the Agreement, Gazprom will buy natural gas (gas produced from Western Siberian fields linked to Gazprom’s gas transportation system) from Rosneft in the amount based on the actual production but not less than production volumes in 2006. The parties agreed to coordinate issues by the additional Agreements on volumes, terms and conditions for marketing of gas produced in the fields not linked to the gas transportation system.

The parties are willing to set up a Coordination Committee of 10 people (one representative and four members of the Committee from each company) aimed at joint business optimization. In the framework of the Committee the parties will set up a Working Group which will prepare the Memorandum of understanding based on sale and purchase terms for Rosneft’s gas as well as offers for joint implementation of perspective projects in Russia and abroad.

The Agreement on strategic partnership was signed for the period up to 2015 taking into consideration an opportunity of further prolongation for the next five-year periods.