OREANDA-NEWS. December 1, 2011. The Gazprom headquarters hosted a working meeting between Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Company's Management Committee and Manabu Miyagawa, Minister of the Japanese Embassy in Russia.

The meeting addressed the prospects for the Russian-Japanese cooperation in the energy sector, notably, the progress with the joint research being done by Gazprom and Japanese companies for the prospective project on creating a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant and gas compression capacities near Vladivostok.

The meeting paid special attention to the growth of natural gas demand in Japan. The parties stressed the high potential of Russia as a source of future LNG supplies to Japan, both from the vicinity of Vladivostok and through swap operations between European and Asian markets.

A focus was placed on the great cooperation opportunities in the area of equipment supply to Gazprom's companies as well as possible establishment of Japanese gas processing and gas powered facilities, the machine building sector inclusive, in the Far East.
Background

In January 2011 Gazprom and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy under the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry signed the Agreement of Cooperation envisaging preparation of a joint feasibility study on the options for natural gas use near Vladivostok as well as for natural gas and gas chemicals transportation from the Vladivostok region and their sales among potential customers in Asia-Pacific.

A consortium of Japanese companies (ITOCHU, JAPEX, MARUBENI, INPEX, CIECO) called JAPAN FAR EAST GAS Co., Ltd was established with the assistance of the Japanese Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. The consortium participants are to perform the feasibility study on behalf of the Japanese party.

In April 2011 in furtherance of the above mentioned document Gazprom and JAPAN FAR EAST GAS Co., Ltd signed the Agreement on the joint feasibility study deployment for an LNG plant near Vladivostok.