Russia's OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) plans to sign agreements on the purchase and sale of natural gas from the ExxonMobil-led (XOM) Sakhalin-1 energy project by May, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
"Things are moving forward...and we hope to sign binding documents with Exxon on the procurement of 11 billion cubic meters of this gas in April or May," the agency cited Gazprom's deputy chief executive Alexander Ananenkov as saying at a meeting in Khabarovsk with first deputy Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev.
ExxonMobil Corp. is keen to export the gas to lucrative Asian markets and in 2006 signed a memorandum of understanding to supply 8 billion cubic meters a year to the China National Petroleum Corp.
But Russia insists that it needs the gas for domestic sale. Ananenkov said the country's Far East Federal District would need 25 billion cubic meters of gas by 2020.
He puts Sakhalin-1's overall reserves at 500 billion cubic meters. Other project partners include OAO Rosneft (ROSN.RS) and India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp. (500312.BY).