29-05-08 Russian energy giant Gazprom and South Korea's gas corporation Kogas have agreed to set up a working group on gas supplies to South Korea, the head of Russia's industrial safety watchdog said.
"Gazprom and Kogaz will set up a working group to address issues concerning natural gas supplies to South Korea through a gas pipeline before signing a [gas cooperation] agreement," Konstantin Pulikovsky, the Rostekhnadzor chief, who also heads a bilateral intergovernmental commission, told the ninth Russian-Korean forum in Moscow.

South Korea relies almost entirely on imports for its Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) needs. It has a diversified gas transportation network, linking coastal liquefied natural gas terminals to key consumption centres across the country, which makes it possible to use natural gas not only in electricity generation but also in the industrial and the utility sectors.
In the autumn of 2006, an intergovernmental agreement on natural gas supplies to Korea was signed in Seoul.

In October 2006, Gazprom Marketing and Trading, part of the Gazprom group, delivered the first LNG shipment to Korea. The second was made in January 2007.
Gazprom has previously said that Russia would be able to start supplying up to 10 bn cm of natural gas a year to South Korea from 2012-13.