Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Rainer Seele, Chairman of the OMV Executive Board, signed the Basic Agreement regarding the asset swap. The signing ceremony took place in the presence of Hans Jörg Schelling, Minister of Finance of the Republic of Austria and Anatoly Yanovsky, Deputy Minister of Energy of Russia.

According to the Basic Agreement, Gazprom will receive a 38.5 percent stake in OMV (NORGE) AS, a company focused on geological exploration and production in Norway. In exchange, OMV will obtain a 24.98 percent stake in the project for developing Blocks 4 and 5 of the Achimov formation in the Urengoy oil, gas and condensate field. The deal is subject to an agreement on the final transaction documents, regulatory approvals and further corporate approvals.

“The Basic Agreement specifies the share that Gazprom will receive in the asset of OMV as part of the asset swap; it also contains some other commercial terms and is legally binding. In essence, the basic parameters of this deal have been determined. We plan to agree and sign the final documents by mid of 2017,” said Alexey Miller.

“The signing of the Basic Agreement is a further milestone to foster the long lasting partnership between OMV and Gazprom. With this, OMV laid the foundation to reach one of its most important strategic targets. The project will substantially increase our reserve base. We will identify further projects and opportunities with Gazprom to expand our cooperation,” said Rainer Seele.

About OMV Aktiengesellschaft

With Group sales of EUR 23 bn and a workforce of around 24,100 employees in 2015, OMV Aktiengesellschaft is one of Austria’s largest listed industrial companies. In Upstream, OMV focuses on three core regions – CEE (Romania, Austria), North Sea as well as Middle East and Africa – and selected development areas. 2015 daily production stood at approximately 303 kboe/d. In Downstream, OMV has an annual refining capacity of 17.8 mn tonnes and approximately 3,800 filling stations in 11 countries as of end of 2015. OMV operates a gas pipeline network in Austria and gas storage facilities in Austria and Germany. In 2015, gas sales volumes amounted to 110 TWh.

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.