OREANDA-NEWS.   Led by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company's Management Committee, a Gazprom delegation paid a working visit today to the Republic of Croatia.

As part of the visit, meetings were held with Ivo Josipovic, President of the Republic of Croatia and Zoran Milanovic, Croatian Prime Minister.

The parties addressed the current state and prospects for the cooperation in the oil and gas sector. In particular, they discussed the South Stream project as well as the project for constructing its gas branch to Croatia, which was currently under consideration.

The meetings also touched upon Gazprom Group's gas supply to Croatia. The Group resumed its natural gas supply to Croatian consumers in 2013. It was pointed out that during the six months of 2014 the Republic had been supplied with 0.34 billion cubic meters of gas, which exceeded the total 2013 supply volume by 45 per cent. In addition, the parties looked into the issues of implementing joint NGV projects.

Special attention was paid to the prospects for Gazprom Neft's participation in the bidding procedures for obtaining subsurface blocks in Croatia in order to conduct geological exploration and develop hydrocarbon fields in future.

Background

South Stream is Gazprom's global infrastructure project aimed at constructing a gas pipeline with the capacity of 63 billion cubic meters to Southern and Central Europe for the purpose of diversifying the natural gas export routes and eliminating transit risks. The first gas will be supplied via South Stream in late 2015. The gas pipeline will reach its full capacity in 2018.
In March 2010 Russia and Croatia signed the Intergovernmental Agreement stipulating Croatia to join the South Stream project.
In September 2013 Gazprom and LNG Croatia signed the Roadmap to implement projects for natural gas use as a motor fuel in the Republic of Croatia.