Russ Oil-Gas

MOSCOW, March 16 (RIA Novosti) - The chief executive of Russian energy giant Gazprom discussed joint liquefied natural gas projects during his visit to Canada, the company's press service said Thursday. Alexei Miller met with Canada's trade, transport and fishery ministers and the heads of oil and gas companies Petro-Canada and TransCanada during his visit March 13-15. Petro-Canada and Gazprom signed an agreement on initial engineering design of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in St. Petersburg. Under the agreement, the companies will conduct preliminary engineering studies to provide cost and schedule estimates for an LNG plant on the Baltic Sea near Russia's second city. LNG from the plant would be supplied to Petro-Canada's proposed LNG re-gasification facility in Gros-Cacouna, Quebec. Gas from this terminal would be trans-shipped to markets in Quebec and Ontario. Canada is the world's third largest natural gas producer (183.6 million cu m in 2004) after the United States and Russia, and second largest exporter after Russia (102.1 billion cu m).