OREANDA-NEWS. June 23, 2010. As the world financial crisis is coming to an end, ITERA Group of Companies, like the majority of Russian companies, are adjusting their plans. In conditions of constrained financial markets and rationalization of operations, the management of ITERA determined to retain and further develop vertically integrated business (from hydrocarbon production to finished goods) as its priority for the next few years, reported the press-centre of ITERA.

Implementation of such plans is related to expansion of the resource base, introduction of innovative technology and development of strategic cooperation with Gazprom. The companies have gained interaction experience in exploration, production and supply of natural gas. In accordance with their common plans Purgaz and Sibneftegazare are efficiently developing Gubkinskoye, Beregovoye, Pyreinoye, Khadyryakhinskoye and Zapadno-Zapoliarnoye fields at the territory of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District (YaNAO). Natural gas-related joint projects are being implemented in the Irkutsk Region and the Baltic States.

ITERA (established in 1992) is involved in implementing gas-related projects since 1994. It is now among the larger independent natural gas producers of Russia.

ITERA has been developing natural gas production of its own since 1998. Nine fields of hydrocarbons have been commissioned with the Company involvement in YaNAO and the Irkutsk Region.

ITERA unites 150 enterprises and companies. It is expanding step by step the geography of its business by adding up new areas of cooperation to the traditional ones. Its projects became known in CIS countries, in the Baltic States, Western Europe, Asia, Africa, as well as in the USA. ITERA has been producing and processing hydrocarbons in Illinois and Texas since 2003. ITERA is a shareholder of Latvijas Gaze, Eesti Gaas of the Baltic States, and is the owner of 11 regional gas distribution companies in Georgia.

ITERA has been operating in the Sverdlovsk Region since 1999. It covers the natural gas demand of the economy and the social sphere of this largest industrial region of Russia. The Company is actively involved in gasification of the Region. It constructs boiler houses and co-generation units, and implements energy-saving technology.  For example, a computer-based system of commercial record-keeping of energy resources is being successfully used at Serov Plant of Ferrous Alloys. It allows for considerable reduction of energy consumption.

ITERA has sold over 540 bcm of natural gas during the time it has been operating in gas markets of Russia, CIS countries and the Baltic States. It has produced over 140 bcm of natural gas. Its investments in development of gas fields had exceeded USD 2 billion.

The Company sells natural gas of own production and gas procured from other gas producers. Purgaz and Sibneftegaz (ITERA’s shareholding in each of them is 49%) produce most of the Company’s proprietary natural gas.  The plan is to continuously increase its own resources of natural gas.

Unfortunately, the Company has to deal with low level of payment on the part of natural gas consumers, and large debt receivables for energy it had supplied.

ITERA expands its presence in Russia and abroad in the framework of its development strategy by way of active involvement in new projects related to exploration and production of hydrocarbons, developing oil and gas infrastructure, constructing thermal power plants and oil-and-gas chemical complexes. ITERA is intensively searching for new products with high added value resulting from processing hydrocarbons. In particular, the plan is to increase the volume of heat and electricity, and products of petrochemical processing to be sold in future.

Power generation is becoming ITERA’s promising business area. The Company has started construction of a 900 mW Combined Cycle Power Plant in the Nizhni Novgorod Region. As a result, the Region will receive both the electric energy it needs, and extra jobs.

ITERA plans include construction of a methanol plant in the Urals. This petrochemical complex will be based on German technology. Its production capacity will be 600 thousand tons of methanols a year. ITERA plans also include development of Apsatskoe coal field in the Trans-Baikal Area which is one of the largest fields in Russia.

The Company is a success in construction and reconstruction of gas pipelines in Russia, Turkmenistan, CIS countries and the Baltic States.

ITERA, jointly with Zarubezhneft and Rosneft, is going to implement oil-and-gas related projects in Turkmenistan. The project of joint development (with Zarubezhneft) of Block 21 in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea is assessed to be worth USD 6 billion. According to expertly forecast, the reserves of the block include 219 million tons of oil and 100 bcm of gas. ZARIT Project (Zarubezhneft, Rosneft and ITERA) intended to develop offshore blocks 29, 30 and 31 in the south-east of the Caspian Sea is very promising.

With consequences of the economic crisis taken into account, ITERA is concentrating its efforts on fulfilling gas-related investment programs, reduction of non-productive outlays and disposal of non-core assets. The proceeds are allocated to purchase new gas assets and to implement gas and energy-related projects.

ITERA maintains sophisticated personnel policies.  Highly qualified specialists work for its companies. They improve their knowledge and skills on a systematic basis. They study modern trends of the world fuel and energy complex. A team of efficient managers has been formed from young and promising staff members.

ITERA Development Group, an ITERA Group company, is implementing a number of important construction projects in Russia, Belorussia and Turkmenistan. Last year, the Company opened an office center in Ashkhabad and constructed a sports complex with a stadium for 10 thousand seats in Turkmenabat.  Two large hippodromes in Lebapskiy and Balkanskiy provinces and a comfortable hotel in Avaza resort zone are to be commissioned in 2010.

The Company is implementing unique town planning designs in the capital city of Belarus. They include Minsk-City, a mega-complex, and a Business Center with Parus (a "sail" looking high-rise apartment building). The Company is starting another big-scale project. It is the construction of an Office Center in Sochi which is to accommodate a headquarters of the Olympic Games - 2014.

ITERA Oil and Gas, LLC, and Rostechnologii, a state corporation, made an agreement in April of 2010. It envisions coordination of the parties’ activities in development, production and supply by the corporation of high-technology equipment and other products to the oil-and-gas company.
The Company is among guardians of Skolkovo, an International Business School, and the University of Oil and Gas named after Gubkin in Moscow. It is the general sponsor of Flight of Hope, a unique international project. Its objective is to preserve the population of white cranes, entered in the International Red Book.

ITERA has been general sponsor for Bicycling Federation of Russia for many years. It was at the initiative of the Company that Katyusha, the Russian professional bicycling team, had been established and is currently financed. It is for the second year at a run now that it is among the most successful bicycling teams of the world. Members of the team took part in Moscow-St. Petersburg bicycle race on April 18-23, 2010. It was devoted to the 65th anniversary of the Great Victory and the 75th anniversary of the mass bicycling movement in the country. ITERA is a shareholder of Dynamo Riga Hockey Club (Latvia) playing in the Continental Hockey League.