Gazprom is seeking to increase natural gas supplies to Britain, the Russian company said on Wednesday after a meeting between CEO Alexei Miller and British Minister of State for Energy Malcolm Wicks.
The Russian natural gas monopoly has been selling natural gas to Britain under short-term contracts since 1999, with its gas exports to the country increasing rapidly. Last year, the company supplied 8.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Britain.
"Prospects for expanding Russian natural gas supplies to the British market and Gazprom's joint activity with British energy companies in the oil and gas sphere were considered at the meeting," the statement reads.
The parties also discussed the implementation of cooperation agreements between Gazprom and Britain's energy giant BP, including natural gas and liquefied natural gas deliveries.
Britain has been a natural gas net importer since 2004. A number of Western experts have forecast that the country's demand for natural gas imports will reach 40 billion cubic meters by 2010. The Nord Stream gas pipeline currently being built under the Baltic Sea to pump Russian natural gas to Europe should become a new channel of natural gas supplies to Britain.
In April 2006, Gazprom Marketing & Trading Ltd, a Gazprom subsidiary, delivered the first 140,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (around 85 million cubic meters of natural gas) to the Isle of Grain terminal in Britain.
In June 2007, Gazprom, A? and the Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-A? signed an agreement to establish a strategic alliance for long-term investment in joint energy projects and asset swaps both in Russia and in third countries.
Latest reports say that the Gazprom board will consider the company's participation in gas and energy projects in Armenia at a meeting next Tuesday, when the company's performance in 2007 is due to be reviewed. ( RIA Novosti)