Russ Oil-Gas

14 October 2008 - Upstream OnLine - Russian gas export monopoly said today its top executives had visited US state Alaska, where the gas company is seeking a share in a project to pipe gas via Canada to the US market. Gazprom discussed gas production, transport and supply to Alaska - which shares a border to its east with Canada and a sea border with Russia to its west - with the region's officials and the chief executive of ConocoPhillips, Jim Mulva, Reuters quoted the company as saying in a statement. "Gazprom has accumulated great experience in exploring hydrocarbon deposits, building and using gas pipelines in the Far North environment,” it said in the statement. “Gazprom's experience will be relevant in realisation of similar projects in Alaska," It did not specify what projects were discussed. Gazprom's chief executive Alexei Miller, who headed the delegation, said in June his company wanted to join a gas pipeline project to pump the fuel from Alaska across Canada to the US market and had made a proposal to oil majors BP and ConocoPhillips. Gazprom, which already supplies a quarter of Europe's gas, has been actively eyeing a way into the north American market for several years. Earlier this week a French stakeholder in Canada's Rabaska liquefied natural gas terminal said Gazprom could get a 27% stake in the project. The terminal is due to be built by 2014, when Gazprom plans to launch its giant LNG project, Shtokman, on the Barents Sea.