Today, within the Norwegian Foreign Affairs Minister Jan Petersen’s visit to Moscow, Gazprom’s Headquarters hosted a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Gazprom’s Management Committee Chairman and Helge Lund, Statoil’s President and CEO.

The meeting pondered on the joint Memorandum implementation, addressing, in particular, the study of potential implementation of joint projects, primarily, the Shtokman gas condensate field development, gas liquefaction plant construction and LNG deliveries to the USA.

“Our companies have much in common,” – underscored A. Miller and H. Lund. “In particular, the Russian and Norwegian gas competitiveness in the USA is of our mutual interest,” – said Alexey Miller. H. Lund pointed out that Gazprom was providing professional and adequate project operatorship and the sound competitive environment around the Shtokman project was establishing favorable prerequisites for the most efficient technical, organizational and commercial solutions. The parties reached an accord that Statoil would furnish Gazprom before April end with a final report on the joint studies and draft heads of agreement on the further Shtokman project implementation.

Alexey Miller and Helge Lund scrutinized the outlook of Russia’s involvement in the Snohvit natural gas production and liquefaction project as well as Gazprom’s potential use of the Statoil-owned regasification capacities in North America and other promising projects.

The meeting also underlined that Statoil’s extensive experience and advanced technologies of oil & gas offshore production, transmission and marketing in conjunction with Gazprom’s experience of large-scale projects operatorship in the Russian North were a guarantee of long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation between the two firms.

The parties agreed to convene on the next meeting in mid-May.

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A vertically integrated multi-profile 76.3%-state-owned petroleum firm, Statoil is running business through 29 locations worldwide. The company counts on vast experience of operations in the Norwegian offshore and is the world’s third crude oil seller. Statoil is a major natural gas supplier to Europe.

The Snohvit (White-Snow) field is situated in the Norwegian Barents Sea. Recoverable reserves of the field are valued at 190 bcm of gas and over 18 million tons of condensate. The field will be developed solely with remote-controlled underwater vehicles and equipment.

The resources to be withdrawn from the field will be channeled to the Hammerfest LNG terminal (Norway) via a 143-km-long underwater pipeline. One train of the first European natural gas liquefaction plant will have an annual capacity of 5.7 bcm. Statoil started technically developing the Snohvit field in 2002 and LNG production & supply to the USA and Europe is due 2006.

Statoil is serving as operator of the Cove Point regasification terminal (2.4 bcm per annum), which is one of the 4 existing regasification terminals in the USA. The terminal is based in Maryland, US West Coast, between Washington DC and New York City. Said area is being regarded upon as the most promising US gas market. Statoil entered into an agreement to modernize the terminal with the view of boosting its throughput. Upon finalization of the modernization due 2008, Statoil will exercise control over the 10 bcm/y regasification, storage and transmission Cove Point terminal.

On 8 September 2004, Gazprom, Rosneft and Statoil sealed in Moscow a Memorandum of understanding.

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