Aside from the President, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, Director General of Gazprom Dobycha Shelf Anatoly Sorokin and Director General of Gazprom Transgaz Tomsk Anatoly Titov will participate in the opening ceremony in person at an onshore processing facility in Sakhalin Region.
The Kirinskoye gas field, developed by Gazprom in Sakhalin, is an important part of the Eastern Programme and Sakhalin 3 Project. The main objective of the Eastern Programme (approved in 2007) is to provide gas supply to Eastern Siberia and the Far East; new gas extraction centres are being created in Irkutsk Region, Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Sakhalin Region and Kamchatka Territory for this purpose. In addition to providing gas supply to Russian regions, plans are also in place to export gas to the Asia Pacific region market.
Kirinskoye gas field, located on the Sakhalin continental shelf 28 kilometres from the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk, holds the following assured reserves: 162.5 billion cubic metres of gas and 19.1 million tonnes of gas condensate; the projected extraction level is 5.5 billion cubic metres per year.
The deposit is interesting due to its unique gas extraction method: the North Star underwater drilling system built to the order of Gazprom by the Vyborg Shipyard, is being used for the first time in Russia for this purpose.