Valentin Mezhevich, first vice chairman of Federation Council Committee on Natural Monopolies

– Rosatom has proved that nuclear companies are a reliable partner

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.

The active work of Rosatom (at that time the Ministry of Atomic Energy) for the benefit of Gazprom started in 1989, when the Ministry was instructed to develop a control system for safe operation of the country’s gas supply network. The first cooperation agreement between the two monopolists was signed in 1998. It is a mutually beneficial cooperation but its results are not widely known. Today, Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation is appearing in quite a new light: everybody knows that nuclear power plants generate electricity for many industries including the gas sector but only specialists know that Rosatom carries out innovative projects in the framework of its cooperation with Gazprom. Only by developing innovative segment will Russia be able to ensure a new development level for its economy. In the past years Rosatom has proved that nuclear companies are a reliable partner and scientific-technical leader in different spheres.

This agreement is laying a basis for strategic partnership between the gas and nuclear sectors. The parties are ready to coordinate their investment plans. Rosatom is joining in the program to develop new gas deposits and is appearing as designer of not only traditional technologies (for example, for nuclear power plants) but also quite new technologies for mining gas at shelf deposits, hydrogen plants and mobile sources of energy – the so-called floating NPPs. It is a mutually beneficial cooperation: Rosatom is enhancing its scientific-technical potential, Gazprom is enlarging the innovative segment of the gas sector and is receiving highly competitive products.