OREANDA-NEWS. June 22, 2009. Gazprom’s Headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company’s Management Committee and Klaus-Ewald Holst, Chairman of the Executive Board of Verbundnetz Gas AG.

The parties discussed the issues related to natural gas supplies and Gazprom’s activities as VNG shareholder.

Alexey Miller and Klaus-Ewald Holst gave a positive evaluation to the progress in the bilateral cooperation.

Background:

Established in 1969, Verbundnetz Gas AG (VNG AG) (Leipzig) is a supplier of gas to Germany’s eastern federal lands and Berlin. VNG core business activities involve natural gas import, supply to consumers as well as underground storage.

At present, the company’s shareholders are as follows: EWE – 47.9 per cent, Wintershall Holding AG – 15.79 per cent plus one share, VNG Verwaltungs und Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH – 25.79 per cent minus one share, EEG – 5.26 per cent, Gazprom – 5.26 per cent.

In May 2007 Gazprom and VNG signed the Memorandum of Intent aimed at creating a joint venture responsible for natural gas storage.

In April 2008 the companies inked the Agreement of Cooperation in the underground gas storage sector, according to which they would construct a gas storage company that would operate a new UGS facility near Bernburg (Saxonia-Anhalt, Germany). Later on this facility was named Katharina.

In May 2009 Gazprom and VNG signed the Agreement to set up a consortium as part of the project for establishing a joint venture to construct Katharina UGS facility.

Upon reaching the design capacity in 2022, the active capacity of Katharina UGS facility will be over 597 million cubic meters of gas.