Russian state-owned Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas supplier, made its first breakthrough in the US market by signing multipart LNG and pipeline gas supplies agreements with Royal Dutch Shell.

The agreements, signed in Moscow by Alexei Miller, chairman, Gazprom's management committee, and Jeroen Van der Veer, CEO, Royal Dutch Shell, will allow companies will deliver 1 million tons of liquefied natural gas per annum until 2028.

Through this 20-year agreement Shell will be able to strengthen the diversification and flexibility of its supply portfolio and its marketing position in the European gas market with Russian natural gas while Gazprom gets access to Shell's Sempra Energia Costa Azul LNG import terminal in Baja California, Mexico, and pipeline capacity to transport gas to Southern California.

With this deal, Gazprom has entered the US, considered to be the most lucrative gas market in the world as well as other markets of the Pacific Basin and will begin shipping LNG supplies this year from Sakhalin II project.

Alexey Miller said, ''Gazprom has consistently implemented its strategy of reinforcing the company's standing on the LNG market and this deal will enable Gazprom to begin shipment of LNG supplies from Sakhalin II to the US, the world's largest gas market, and other markets of the Pacific Basin, starting from this year.''

While Van der Veer said, ''This is another important milestone in cooperation between Gazprom and Shell and we look forward to expanding further our relationship with Gazprom in a variety of activities related to natural gas and LNG developments both in Russia and internationally.''

Sakhalin II is the world's largest complex oil and gas project embracing the development of two oil and gas fields north-west offshore the Sakhalin Island (Piltun-Astokhskoye and Lunskoye fields), extraction of oil and production of liquefied gas for export.

The Sakhalin II holds reserve averaging 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

The Sakhalin II project is run by a consortium under Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd, with Gazprom having 51 per cent stake, Shell 27.5 per cent and Japan's Mitsui 12.5 per cent and Mitsubishi 10 per cent.

Industry experts say that Russia may not get the same price for its gas in the US compared to the price paid by European nations as there are many other gas suppliers in the US. Nevertheless, this is a huge breakthrough for Russia, who for years had been trying to get a foothold into the US gas market.

Gazprom had invested heavily in the Sakhalin project with an eye of exporting gas to Japan and Europe and Japan has since become the biggest importer of gas from this project.