The US arm of Russia’s Gazprom expects to begin trading gas in the US by October, company officials said this week.

“We will be marketing and trading this year,” John Hattenberger, managing director of Gazprom Marketing and Trading USA, said at Intelligence Press’ GasMart conference in Chicago on Wednesday. “We will become a major trading player.”

Hattenberger has been preparing for that day since parent company OAO Gazprom opened offices in Houston in 2006. The state-controlled Russian company is the largest natural gas exporter in the world and holds 17% of the world’s gas reserves.

Gazprom also has begun expanding its reach into liquefied natural gas production and trading, with two new long-term LNG projects in the Russian fields of Sakhalin and Shtokman currently under way.

Besides initial LNG shipments, Gazprom plans to secure up to 300,000 Mcf/d for gas trading through contract swaps, both for gas on European pipelines now and for LNG from their Shtokman-I LNG project in the Barento Sea scheduled to begin producing in 2014, Hattenberger said.

According to Gazprom, the Shtokman project has gas reserves of more than 130 Tcf, with much of it destined for the US.

“There is an infinite sink market for gas in the US,” Hattenberger said, adding that when Gazprom’s LNG does start arriving, “we will have a huge supply position.”

US Head of Trading Bruce Sukaly said at the conference on Thursday said prices would determine the volume of gas traded.

“We may not be doing very much at first. If prices stay the way they have been, it’ll be more worthwhile to trade in Europe or Asia,” he said, adding that it could be well into 2010 before US trading operations reach the size company officials are aiming for.

reprinted with permission from Platts.