A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Giorgos Tsipras, Secretary General for International Economic Relations at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, took place at the Company’s headquarters today.

The parties expressed their appreciation for the current state of the Russian-Greek partnership in the energy sector and discussed its development prospects. A focus was placed on efforts for securing transit of Russian gas across Greece to Italy as part of the TurkStream project.

Alexey Miller and Giorgos Tsipras agreed that the new pipeline project for gas exports to southern and southeastern Europe was a major step toward the diversification of supply routes and would make a large contribution to energy security in Greece and other countries of the region.

The parties also reviewed issues related to natural gas supplies to the Greek market. It was noted that in 2016 Gazprom had exported 2.68 billion cubic meters of gas to Greece (a 35 per cent increase versus 2015). The upward trend persisted in January and February 2017: Greece’s gas imports from Russia grew by 20.6 per cent compared to the same period of 2016.