The board will consider increasing the charter capital of the company's 100% subsidiary Gazprombank through the issue of additional shares.
Gazprombank is the third-largest Russian bank in terms of assets. Gazprom holds an 87.5% stake in the bank. The bank said October 5 that its net profit, according to Russian Accounting Standards, declined 74% in July-September 2006, quarter-on-quarter, to 1.37 billion rubles ($51 million) from 5.18 billion rubles ($193 million).
The bank said the lower figure was due to interest payments on its Eurobonds in September and advance profit tax payments, as well as tax payments in June for the second quarter.
Gazprom's board will also discuss its European expansion strategy in light of Turkey's growing importance as a conduit for Russian gas supplies to Europe.
Gazprom, which already pumps gas to Turkey through the Blue Stream pipeline across the Black Sea, is considering the construction of a new pipeline that would use Turkey as a transit point for exports to the EU.
However, Turkey clearly favors a project to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, but bypassing Russia. The $6 billion Nabucco pipeline, which will be completed by 2011, will have an estimated capacity of 30 billion cubic meters a year, and is seen as a rival to Gazprom's Blue Stream-2, which will have a capacity of 8 billion cubic meters and a commissioning date no sooner than 2012.
Turkey could potentially use gas exports from Azerbaijan through a proposed link - the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline - which will connect Turkey to the Central Asian country's Shah Deniz gas field.
