Vladimir Zhidkikh, member of Nuclear Energy Sub-Committee of Federation Council

– People will have jobs and good wages

On Dec 16 2008 Chairman of the Board of Gazprom OJSC Aleksey Miller and Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko signed a six-year general cooperation agreement. The agreeing parties are planning to implement strategic projects to develop sea and shelf gas deposits (Shtokmanovsky deposit, deposits in Yamal and the Far East); to supply electricity to gas transportation networks for supply of gas to regions of the Russian Federation and export of gas to Western Europe and South-east Asia; to coordinate inter-related investment projects; to develop new technologies, designing competitive (import-substituting) production for enhancing the efficiency of prospecting, extraction, transportation, storage, processing of natural gas and gas condensate. The parties are also planning to develop a program of scientific-technical cooperation to be renewed each three years and to set up a council for coordination of joint action under strategic projects and investment programs.

Now that we are receiving more and more reports about declining productions, the singing of cooperation agreement between Rosatom and Gazprom is really good news. This is not a formal alliance – it has practical orientation. The two strongest and richest players of the Russian and world markets are consolidating their resources and capacities. This is especially good as lots of strong alliances worldwide are falling apart. Of course, this alliance is based on years of hard preparatory work and long history of fruitful cooperation: the gas and nuclear sectors have cooperated for 20 years. 

But the most important thing about this agreement is that it will give people jobs, good wages and social stability.