OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) will spend 1.2 trillion rubles ($38.4 billion) launching a gas field and pipeline to Vladivostok in the country's far east by the end of 2017, Interfax quoted the company's chief executive as saying Monday.

Gazprom said in September that it would speed up plans to boost shipments east after the European Commission open an anti-trust investigation into the company's practises in central and eastern Europe.

The company's Cheif Executive Alexei Miller told President Vladimir Putin that the company would spend RUB430 billion launching the Chayanda field in Russia's far east and RUB770 billion on a pipeline to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.

Mr. Putin said that developing Chayanda--which holds around 1.3 trillion cubic meters of gas and another giant field, Kovytka, is the next stage of Russia 's Eastern Gas Program.

"I want to remind you that we agreed that the gas from these fields will primarily go for domestic needs, for domestic use," he told Mr. Miller, Interfax reported. "But considering the huge reserves...we can also create separately a center for export, oriented toward the Asia-Pacific region."

Russia and Japan in September signed a deal to develop a liquefied natural gas plant in Vladivostok . Mr. Miller said Monday that the plant would cost around RUB220 billion and be completed by 2018. He said it would have a capacity of at least 10 million metric tons a year.

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