OREANDA-NEWS.   The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company's Management Committee and Vladimir Remek, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic to the Russian Federation.

The parties addressed the ongoing cooperation between Russia and the Czech Republic in the gas sector. It was pointed out that more than 45 years of efficient dialogue between the countries provided for secure Russian natural gas supply to consumers in the Czech Republic, and, in addition, considerably increased the reliability of gas supply to other European countries.

In particular, the meeting evaluated the prospects for partnership development in the NGV sector. Gazprom is represented by Vemex in the Czech NGV market. The company owns five CNG filling stations as well as supplies natural gas to five CNG filling stations of third parties. At present, Vemex jointly with Gazprom Germania is engaged in the project for constructing nine CNG filling stations across the country – it is planned to supply the vehicles of Ceska Posta (Czech Post) with NGV fuel.

In addition, the meeting participants addressed the cooperation to build up underground gas storage (UGS) capacities. Jointly with MND Group, Gazprom constructs the Damborice UGS facility in South Moravia. Upon commissioning in 2016, the UGS facility with the working gas volume of 448 million cubic meters will become the largest UGS facility in the Czech Republic and will substantially increase the reliability of export supply to Central Europe.

Background

In 1967 Czechoslovakia became the first country to receive natural gas from the USSR via a gas export trunkline. In 2013 Gazprom supplied 7.9 billion cubic meters of gas to the Czech Republic and also delivered 27.3 billion cubic meters of gas via the Republic to consumers in Western Europe.
The major businesses of Vemex include pipeline gas sales, power generation, underground gas storage and NGV fuel. Gazprom's share in the Vemex equity capital (Gazprom Germania holds a 50.14 cent stake) provides for the outreach to end consumers in the Czech Republic.
MND Group is a major oil and gas company of the Czech Republic. The company is focused on oil and gas field exploration and development as well as UGS facilities construction and operation in many European countries, the Middle East, North Africa and the CIS.