The presidents of Armenia and Iran will inaugurate on Monday the first Armenian section of a natural gas pipeline connecting their countries, officials in Yerevan said on Friday.

At the request of Commissioner Piebalgs, the Gas Coordination Group met today to assess the reliability of gas supply through Belarus after the last-minute agreement signed between Gazprom and Belarus on 31 December 2006.

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell said today that Russian state-controlled natural gas giant OAO Gazprom will acquire a 50 percent-plus-one share stake in the Sakhalin-2 energy project from Royal Dutch Shell and Japan's Mitsui and Mitsubishi, for $7.45 billion.