Alexey Miller
Dear Shareholders!
The Annual General Shareholders’ Meeting is a crucial and challenging event for our Company. On June 24, Gazprom’s top management will report on the work done over the past year and will disclose promising corporate development projections.
I’ am positive that You’re satisfied with the Company’s financial and operating progress.
We’ve reached record high gas production rates, provided uninterrupted operation of the United Gas Transmission System and effected full gas supplies to the domestic and foreign markets. Our achievements influenced Gazprom’s share prices practically doubling within the past year. And this is not an endpoint.
Gazprom is intent on proceeding forward and becoming a global energy company fixing the international gas market rules.
To meet this challenge, we count on a whole scope of opportunities including the resource base, transmission network, reliable partners, research developments and, which is the most important thing, strategy for success.
We’re doing the best we can to put this strategy into practice. We’re seriously gearing up to lay the North-European gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea with the view of solidifying Gazprom’s standing as a leading gas exporter to Europe. We’re intensively involved in the talks and projects to produce liquefied natural gas and supply it to the extensive US market. We have sealed cooperation agreements with petroleum concerns from China and India. We’re reinforcing Gazprom’s position on the former USSR markets.
Gazprom is working hard to diversify its business, acquiring electric power assets, participating in oil recovery and refining and developing deep gas-chemical processing capacities.
The Company’s share market liberalization is a significant factor for Gazprom’s transformation into a leading global energy firm. It’ll allow us to attract first-rate long-term investors and implement large-scale projects in Russia and abroad.
The restructuring process targeted at the corporate governance transparency and efficiency enhancement is a key component of our strategy. After optimizing the parent company’s operations, we’ve moved on to reforming the subsidiaries’ business structure. As a result, we’ll shortly have gas production, transmission, processing, storage and marketing financial flows fully unbundled.
I’ am sure that by implementing these plans, we’ll achieve the corporate value and shareholders’ welfare growth.