OREANDA-NEWS. 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, the Gazprom information division reports. Present at the meeting were representatives of the core business units and subsidiaries of Gazprom.

The meeting addressed current issues of the Integrated Gas Supply System development in Russia’s East with due regard to the approval of the Eastern Program by the Russian Federation Government. In particular, 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 holding of the 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 implementation of the Program. Additionally, the implementation of separate Program elements Gazprom started a few years ago,” said Alexander Ananenkov.

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 of 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.

In 2006, the Gazprom 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.