Ecology and Energy Conservation

Gazprom runs business in compliance with the environmental legislation of the Russian Federation, the commonly accepted international principles and the OAO Gazprom Environmental Policy.

Environmental impact mitigation and natural resource conservation is a mainstay of OAO Gazprom’s environmental activities. This is confirmed by the fact that despite the annually increasing scope of operations, OAO Gazprom subsidiary companies’ environmental impacts remain stably low and keep reducing by a number of indicators.

In 2008 Gazprom Group continued upgrading and modernizing industrial facilities in line with the environmental legislation requirements.

In particular, the solutions aimed at decreasing the level of compressor station noise were implemented, as well as at reducing the pollutants emission into the atmosphere by means of a reduction in gas consumption for technological needs. In addition, construction of new sewage treatment facilities was carried out, as well as modernization and upgrading of the existing ones.

In 2008 state inspections didn’t find any significant violations of Russia’s environmental legislation by Gazprom Group member companies. The claims submitted in 2007 by the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology in relation to the Sakhalin II project implementation, have been removed, the Environmental Action Plan has been fulfilled. No significant penal sanctions were imposed by environmental authorities with regard to the project in 2008.

In 2008 the OAO Gazprom Environmental Policy and List of High-Priority Activities Related to Environmental Protection were approved for the period up to 2010. The Environmental Policy implementation should result in cost reduction, an increase in the resource utilization efficiency, minimization of specific indicators of negative environmental impacts and optimization of the corporate environmental management system.

Independent audit of Gazprom’s environmental management system confirmed that OAO Gazprom and it’s subsidiaries were performing large-scale work aiming to meet the environmental requirements and were allocating significant financial resources and possess relevant highly qualified personnel for these purposes. According to the audit results, a plan for further environmental management system upgrading was offered. Subsequently, the plan will be certificated for compliance with the requirements of ISO14001 international standard. In 2009 the respective work is continued within a special-purpose corporate working group.

In 2008 Gazprom spent over RUB 22 billion to protect the environment.

The bulk of the environmental expenses are anticipated by OAO Gazprom during the execution of specific projects. As a rule, these are the expenses arising from the application of advanced technologies enabling to reduce negative environmental impacts.

In 2008 capital investments in nature conservation were in excess of RUB 3.5 billion. The capital repair of the fixed assets used for environmental measures was funded with over RUB 1.4 billion. Operating expenses on environmental protection amounted to RUB 17.1 billion. Environmental pollution charges totaled RUB 2.6 billion.