Ashgabat correspondent of Turkmenistan.Ru reports that Saparmurat Niyazov held a meeting today with Mr. Makarov, President of the Company Group “ITERA”, Mr. Tokarev, Director General of “Zarubezhneft” and Mr. A. Kuznetsov, Vice-president of the Oil Company “Rosneft”.

The Russian business leaders informed Saparmurat Niyazov about the preparation process of the agreement on the exploration and hydrocarbon production in the blocks on the Caspian shelf, which is to be signed by “ZarIT” with the Turkmen Government.

As is already known, that the Russian companies “Rosneft”, “ITERA” and “Zarubezhneft” established “ZarIT” alliance in 2002 specially for the development of several blocks on the continental shelf of the Caspian Sea. Last February the State concern “Turkmenneft” joined the venture and acquired 15%-share in “ZarIT” due to the redistribution of the parties’ shares. Currently “Rosneft” and “ITERA” own approximately 31% of the authorised capital each instead of 37%, “Zarubezhneft” got a share of 23% instead of 26%.

«During this year and a half together with out Turkmen colleagues we’ve performed a large amount of work, - Vice-president of “Rosneft” Alexey Kuznetsov told the journalists, - and though we are close to signing, there is still a number of questions to discuss and touch upon. This will be the first big agreement with the Russian companies, which undoubtedly will lay the beginning of a new stage of the Turkmen – Russian cooperation».

The Turkmen State news service reports that the agreement with “ZarIT” may be signed in early June 2004.