Today the Gazprom Headquarters has hosted a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Tony Hayward, Chief Executive of BP Group.

The parties discussed the progress with executing the Agreements of cooperation development signed earlier between Gazprom and BP.

Reference:

BP is one of the largest non-governmental oil and gas producing companies in the world. BP oil reserves exceed 18.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent and 1.4 trillion cu m of natural gas. Basic company activities: oil and gas development and production; oil produce wholesale and retail trade; gas disposal and gas energy; petrochemistry. BP is one of the leaders in LNG world trade.

On June 22, 2007 Gazprom, BP and TNK-BP signed the Agreement on the major terms. The Agreement contemplates establishing a strategic alliance between the companies for long-term investment in joint energy projects as well as asset swaps both in Russia and third countries.

Pursuant to the Agreement, TNK-BP will sell Gazprom a 62.8 per cent stake in Rusia Petroleum, which is the license holder for the Kovykta field, as well as a 50 per cent stake in East Siberian Gas Company, which is implementing a regional gasification project for the Irkutsk Oblast. The deal value will be fixed at a current market price within a 90 day period.

Gazprom and TNK-BP also agreed on a call-option for TNK-BP to buy back a 25 per cent plus one share stake in the Kovykta project. The option could be exercised after the parties to the Agreement have agreed on a project to be executed within the alliance, or have approved an asset swap.

On September 12, 2007 the parties resulted in a joint decision to prolong the deal completion timing till December 1, 2007 in view of a big scope of work embracing asset evaluation and deal arrangements.