OREANDA-NEWS. March 10, 2010. The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a meeting of the Company’s Coordinating Committee for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency. The meeting was moderated by Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Chairman of the Coordinating Committee.

Taking part in the meeting were Valery Golubev, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Members of the Company’s Management Committee: Oleg Aksyutin, Head of the Gas Transportation, Underground Storage and Utilization Department, Yaroslav Golko, Head of the Investment and Construction Department, Viktor Ilyushin, Head of the Department of Relationships with Regional Authorities of the Russian Federation, as well as heads of the Gazprom Administration’s specialized subdivisions and Gazprom gaznadzor.

The meeting considered the progress in preparing the Gazprom Environmental Management System for the certification procedure pursuant to the ISO 14001 standard. It was noted that the Task Force on streamlining the system had endorsed the plan of preparations for the certification and elaborated the necessary documents, as well as approved the schedule for introducing environmental management systems within Gazprom’s subsidiaries.

The Coordinating Committee approved Gazprom’s Corporate Environmental Targets. These include:
— cutting down on methane and nitrogen oxide emissions;
— reducing waste dumping;
— saving natural gas consumed for the corporate technological needs;
— introducing an environmental management system in compliance with the ISO 14001 standard.

Approval was also given to the Coordinating Committee Plan of Actions for 2010.

Background

The Gazprom Coordinating Committee for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency was established in October 2007 in order to secure an integrated approach and coordinate the environmental activities of the Company’s structural units and subsidiaries.

The major goals of the Committee are as follows:
— comprehensively evaluating the effectiveness of the Gazprom Group environmental activities;
— introducing an integrated environmental, energy saving and energy efficiency management;
— coordinating Gazprom’s interaction with environmental authorities and public entities.

The Gazprom Environmental Management System development and certification pursuant to the international ISO 14001 standard is provided for in the List of Gazprom’s Paramount Environmental Activities endorsed by the Company’s Management Committee’s Decree in September 2008.

The ISO 14001 standard of the International Organization for Standardization is a voluntary but widely recognized document. The standard is targeted at promoting the environmental protection measures and raising the efficiency of a company’s environmental activities.

The ISO 14001 standard compliance certification of an environmental management system by an independent international organization confirms a company’s environmental efficiency, its responsibility towards nature protection and, in most cases, serves as a prerequisite for the development of partner relations with foreign companies.