OREANDA-NEWS.   A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Ben van Beurden, Chief Executive Officer of Shell took place today as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2014.

The parties addressed the strategic cooperation issues, including the potential areas of cooperation in geological exploration, production, hydrocarbon processing and marketing at the Russian and international petroleum markets as well as LNG production.

Special attention was paid to a possible expansion of the cooperation as part of the Sakhalin II project buildup.

Background

Shell is a British-Dutch oil and gas company focused on hydrocarbons production, processing and marketing in over 90 countries worldwide.
In April 2013 Gazprom and Shell signed the Memorandum outlining the principles of cooperation within hydrocarbons exploration and development in Russia's Arctic shelf and a part of deepwater shelf abroad.
In February 2014 Gazprom and Shell signed the memorandum-roadmap to prepare FEED documents for the third LNG production train within the Sakhalin II project.
Sakhalin Energy is the Sakhalin II project operator with ownership spread among Gazprom (50 per cent plus one share), Shell (27.5 per cent minus one share), Mitsui & Co. (12.5 per cent) and Mitsubishi Corporation (10 per cent).
As part of Sakhalin II, Russia's first LNG plant was commissioned in early 2009 and consumers abroad started receiving LNG from Russia. In 2010 the plant reached its full capacity of 9.6 million tons per annum. A total of 10.8 million tons of LNG and 5.4 million tons of oil were produced within the Sakhalin II project in 2013.