OREANDA-NEWS. On October 09, 2007 moderated by Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee a meeting was held in Tomsk on gas transportation facilities operation in the Far Eastern Federal District. Present at the meeting were representatives of the core business units and subsidiaries of Gazprom, reported the press-centre of Gazprom.

The meeting addressed current issues of the Integrated Gas Supply System development in Russia’s East with due regard of the approval of the Eastern Program by the Russian Federation Government. Particularly, the parties envisaged the need to primarily develop the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas transportation system due to the limited capacity of gas pipelines located in the Far East and the regional growing gas market as well as conduction of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Vladivostok in 2012.

The participants discussed also issues related to execution of the Russian Federation President Directive on Gazprom participation in the gasification project in the Kamchatka Oblast.

“After the approval of the Eastern Program, Gazprom received an opportunity to start a large-scale execution of the Program. Additionally, the execution of separate Program elements Gazprom started a few years ago,” said Alexander Ananenkov.

Reference:
The Development Program for the Integrated Gas Production, Transportation and Supply System in Eastern Siberia and the Far East with due regard of Possible Gas Export to China and other Asia-Pacific Countries (Eastern Program) was approved on June 19, 2007 at the session of the Russian Federation Government and approved by the Order #340 of the Ministry of Industry and Energy as of September 3, 2007.

Pursuant to the Directive of the Russian Federation Government #975-p as of July 16, 2002 Gazprom was appointed as the Eastern Program coordinator.

The Program’s priority principle is a Russian consumer, the necessity to primarily satisfy gas need of the Russian market.

In 2006 the Board of Directors decided to consider it expedient to develop the Company’s business activity on the Sakhalin shelf and resource base as well as to set up and develop the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas transportation system.

The Sakhalin shelf is the most explored offshore area of the Far Eastern Seas. On the Sakhalin shelf 9 hydrocarbon fields were discovered with total reserves of gas, oil and gas condensate estimated at 1,2 tcm, 394,4 mln t and 88,5 mln t, respectively. The prospecting hydrocarbon reserves on the Sakhalin exceed 6 bcm of fuel equivalent.