The chief executive of Russian gas giant Gazprom said yesterday he regarded Asia as a potentially lucrative market that could help diversify Russia's gas exports

"We regard the Asia-Pacific vector as an opportunity for real diversification of Russian export gas supply, in as much as the Eastern direction is becoming a priority for the Russian gas sector," Alexei Miller told the World Gas conference here. Gazprom, the world's largest gas producer, exported 129.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas to Europe in 2002, supplying 26 percent of overall European gas consumption. For now, Russia has only two export markets – former Russian republics and Europe. But Miller said Russian gas would be of particular interest to China, South Korea and Japan as demand was set to grow. Kunio Anzai, chairman of the Japan Gas Association, said on Tuesday that some studies had forecast Asian demand to grow by an annual average of four percent during the next 30 years, outpacing the world average of 2.5 per cent growth.