Russian gas monopoly Gazprom and Spanish energy group Repsol YPF may join forces to ship super-cooled liquefied natural gas (LNG) to North American markets, Gazprom said on Friday.
Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller met Repsol Chairman Alfonso Cortina in Gazprom's head office, the world's largest gas firm said in a statement.
"The two sides discussed opportunities for delivering Russian gas to Spain, the possibility of co-operating in the delivery of LNG to the American market and also the development of Gazprom and Repsol's joint projects in ... third countries," the statement said.
Gazprom is keen to supply US markets, but as yet has no LNG facility of its own to supercool gas for onward shipment.
It has signed an agreement with Petro-Canada for a $2 billion LNG terminal project that will ship 3.5 million tonnes a year of LNG to North America from 2009.
Industry sources have said Gazprom was looking to learn more about the LNG business by swapping its pipeline gas in Europe against LNG with major oil firms, such as BP. One of Respol's biggest LNG projects is in Trinidad and Tobago, where it has a joint venture with BP and BG.
Last year, it signed a deal with a US unit of oil major Royal Dutch/Shell to supply two billion cubic metres of liquefied natural gas up to the end of 2005 from the plant.