Gazprom's UK-based marketing and trading arm, Gazprom Marketing & Trading, said it had bought an LNG cargo from BG Group to deliver to a US receiving terminal at Cove Point, Maryland, where Royal Dutch Shell holds regasification capacity. The first cargo would be delivered at the beginning of September on an ex-ship basis.

Gazprom – which supplies 25% of Europe’s gas needs via major pipelines – wants to supply gas to the larger US markets, but it has no existing LNG facilities.

A Gazprom Marketing & Trading statement said Gazprom was now focusing on expanding its LNG marketing and trading activities in preparation for the first availability of Russian-produced LNG.

It wants to buy 25% of the Shell-led Sakhalin-2 project near Japan, which will begin LNG shipments from mid-2008, and also wants to have its own LNG terminal in the Baltic Sea near St Petersburg by 2009. A third option could be an LNG plant for the giant offshore Shtokman field in the Russian Arctic.