On April 18-19 Gazprom’s headquarters has hosted the first meeting of the Joint working group of Gazprom and Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

The meeting was chaired by Alexander Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee, and Ranbir Singh Butol, ONGC Videsh Ltd., Executive director.

Parties have co-ordinated bilateral cooperation in Russia and India as well as oil and gas projects in Asia, Middle East, North Africa, South America and CIS countries.

The Joint working group staff was approved. The following subgroups were organized: oil and gas field exploration and development, oil and gas supplies and realization in India, scientific and technical cooperation, personnel training and retraining, raising of professional skills and exchange of specialists.

The protocol was signed according to meeting results. The next meeting of the Joint working group is planned for July, 2006.

Reference:

The Indian Oil and Gas Corporation is the largest state company in India by hydrocarbon proven reserves and production. The company’s basic activity is oil and gas field exploration and development, oil and natural gas production. The government owns 84% of company’s shares. Since the date of the company foundation in 1950 cumulative hydrocarbon production has amounted to 600 million tons of oil and 200 bcm of gas. The company has produced 27.6 million tons of oil and 24.3 bcm of gas, 3.8 million tons of petrochemical products, liquefied gas and kerosene.

Memorandum of mutual understanding between Gazprom and ONGC was signed in Moscow on February 21, 2005. The document envisages the parties to cooperate as follows:

• development of facilities on fine treatment of natural gas, oil and other hydrocarbon raw materials in Russia, India and third countries;
• arrangement of gas, oil and chemical products supplies to the Asian-Pacific and South Asia markets and primarily to India;
• designing, construction and operation of trunk pipelines and systems of underground gas storage (UGS);
• development of scientific and technical cooperation in the basic sectors of gas industry;
• co-operation in the field of study, raising of qualification skills and personnel retraining.

The parties have established the Joint working group to realize the Memorandum.