The Gazprom headquarters hosted a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company's Management Committee and Rainer Seele, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of Wintershall Holding.

The parties addressed the main issues of the bilateral cooperation, paying special attention to Russian natural gas supply to Europe. It was pointed out that repeatedly occurring high risks of gas transit via Ukraine called for creating Russian gas supply alternatives.

In this regard, the meeting highlighted the key role of the existing Nord Stream gas pipeline as well as the need to promptly resolve the issue of using OPAL's full transit capacity by the Russian supplier.

About Nord Stream

Nord Stream is a gas pipeline with the annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas, exporting Russian natural gas to Europe via the Baltic Sea bypassing transit countries. The project is operated by the Nord Stream joint venture (Gazprom owns a 51 per cent stake, Wintershall Holding and E.ON Global Commodities – 15.5 per cent each, Gasunie and GDF Suez – 9 per cent each).
The OPAL and NEL gas pipelines connect Nord Stream with the European gas system. The OPAL gas pipeline is operated by OPAL Gastransport (Gazprom owns a 49.98 stake and Wintershall Holding – 50.02 per cent).

A wholly-owned subsidiary of BASF, Wintershall Holding has been focused on oil and gas exploration and production for over 80 years.

About Wintershall

Wintershall Holding GmbH, based in Kassel, Germany, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BASF in Ludwigshafen. The company has been active in the extraction of natural resources for 120 years, and in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas for over 80 years. Wintershall focuses on selected core regions where the company has built up a high level of regional and technological expertise. These are Europe, Russia, North Africa, South America, and increasingly the Middle East region. The company wants to expand its business further with exploration and production, selected partnerships, innovation and technological competence. Wintershall employs some 2,500 staff worldwide from 40 nations and is now Germany’s largest, internationally active crude oil and natural gas producer.

About Gazprom

Gazprom is a global energy company. Its major business lines are geological exploration, production, transportation, storage, processing and sales of gas, gas condensate and oil, sales of gas as a vehicle fuel as well as generation and marketing of heat and electric power.

Gazprom views its mission in reliable, efficient and balanced supply of natural gas, other energy resources and their derivatives to consumers.

Gazprom holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves. The Company’s share in the global and Russian gas reserves makes up 18 and 72 per cent respectively. Gazprom accounts for 14 and 74 per cent of the global and Russian gas output accordingly. At present, the Company actively implements large-scale projects aimed at exploiting gas resources of the Yamal Peninsula, Arctic Shelf, Eastern Siberia and the Far East, as well as hydrocarbons exploration and production projects abroad.

Gazprom is a reliable supplier of gas to Russian and foreign consumers. The Company owns the world’s largest gas transmission network – the Unified Gas Supply System of Russia with the total length of over 168 thousand kilometers. Gazprom sells more than half of overall produced gas to Russian consumers and exports gas to more than 30 countries within and beyond the former Soviet Union.