Today, in Vienna (Austria) in the frames of the official visit of the Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Dr. Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Executive Board of OMV AG have signed a Memorandum of understanding.

Pursuant to the document the parties confirm Gazprom’s intention to participate in the Central European Gas Hub (a 100 per cent subsidiary of OMV Gas International) located at Baumgarten.

“These integrated projects will become another milestone in the cooperation of our companies and contribute to reliability increase of natural gas supply to Europe,” said Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer.

“The Memorandum signed today with Austrian partners confirms that the Gazprom development strategy follows a dynamic energy sector development in the countries of the European Union and will contribute to provision of the European energy security,” said Alexey Miller.

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Within more than 38 years Austria’s largest oil and gas group OMV has been the major business partner of Gazprom. OMV was the first Western company to enter in 1968 into a long-term contract for the purchase of natural gas in the USSR. Until 1987 Gazprom owned a 100 per cent stake in the company. Nowadays the largest shareholder of OMV is the state (via the Austrian state holding company OIAG owning a 31.5 per cent stake).

OMV Gas International was established in early 2006 as an OMV holding company responsible for the natural gas business including gas logistics and storage through the subsidiaries as OMV Gas (100 per cent), Nabucco Gaspipeline International and Adria LNG, gas trading via EconGas (50 per cent) and Petrom (51 per cent).

In May 2005 Gazprom export and OMV agreed to supply natural gas to Western Europe via the Western-Austrian gas pipeline (WAG-West Austria Gasleitung). A new Agreement was concluded for a twenty-year period over 2007 to 2027. Pursuant to the document, OMV annually until 2027 will transport some 4.4 bcm of Russian gas from the Slovak border via the territory of Austria up to the German boarder.

In September 2006 Gazprom and a group of Austrian companies signed the long-term contracts to supply gas to Austria. In accordance with the contracts signed Gazprom will annually supply nearly 7 bcm of gas to Austria until 2027.

As of January 1, 2007, from the beginning of gas supplies to Austria Gazprom supplied more than 150 bcm.

The Central European Gas Hub in Baumgarten is one of the largest gas distribution centers in Europe. In 2006 the Hub distributed 7.7 bcm of gas.