OREANDA-NEWS. September 08, 2015. As part of the Eastern Economic Forum, Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Rainer Seele, Chairman of the OMV Executive Board signed today in Vladivostok an Agreement on terms and conditions of a possible asset swap.

Subject to the swap deal, OMV will acquire a 24.98 per cent stake in the project for developing Blocks 4A and 5A of the Achimov deposits at the Urengoy oil, gas and condensate field in exchange for the participating interest in OMV.

“For many decades Gazprom and OMV have been in a constructive dialogue covering a lot of activities. The Agreement signed today starts a new stage of the cooperation. We are ready to apply all the accumulated experience to make our partnership successful,” said Alexey Miller.

“This Agreement is another step closer to the cooperation with Gazprom along the entire value chain. We purchase Russian gas for our European customers. Together we contribute to the security of supply by implementing the Nord Stream II project. In addition, right now we are broadening our trust-based partnership for producing natural gas in Siberia,” said Rainer Seele.

Background

OMV is a major partner of Gazprom in Austria.

On June 18 Gazprom and OMV signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding encompassing future long-term business projects, the asset swap deals inclusive.

On June 18, 2015 Gazprom, E.ON, Shell and OMV signed the Memorandum of Intent stipulating the construction of two strings of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline with an aggregate annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters, to be laid from the Russian coast to the German coast via the Baltic Sea.