Today the Gazprom Headquarters has hosted a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Dmitry Kazakov, General Director of Beltransgaz.

The parties addressed the terms for cooperation in the gas sector over 2007. Special attention was paid to independent price estimation progress for Belarus gas transportation system which plans to be finalized by December 2006.

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Gazprom transits to the market principles of cooperation with all Russian gas purchasing countries. Belarus is the last country that has kept low price for Russian gas in 2006 due to the number of Belarus decisions made meeting Gazprom economic interests. Particularly, the parties registered Gazprom’s ownership of Belarus branch of the Yamal-Europe Pipeline and granted Gazprom a long-term lease on the land along the pipeline. Therefore, the transit to the European price level for Belarus is planned to be implemented in 2007.

Gazprom and Beltransgaz sealed a Gas Delivery and Transit Contract for 2006 on December 27, 2005. The gas price and transmission tariff in 2006 are in line with the arrangements for 2005. Under the Contract, Gazprom will provide Belarus with 21 bcm of gas, of which 1.5 bcm will be supplied provided there is capacity available.

On the initiative of Belarus side the independent price estimation will be done by ABN AMRO bank predicting that said assets might be accepted as payments for gas supply.