Medvedev to attend coalbed methane production start-up in Siberia.

MOSCOW, February 12 (Itar-Tass) -- President Dmitry Medvedev will
continue his tour of Siberia on Friday and will watch the start-up of the first coalbed methane production unit in Kemerovo.

"Russia is creating a new high-tech industry. We develop methane,
which is the enemy of coal miners, into a business that can be efficiently
used to satisfy growing global demand for energy resources," Kemerovo
Governor Aman Tuleyev told Tass.
Over a hundred vehicles at Kedrovsky coal strip mine will be switched
from diesel fuel and petrol to methane in 2010, he said.
Gazprom estimated methane reserves in Kuzbass coal basin in Kemerovo
region to exceed 13 trillion cubic meters, which comprises a fourth of all
prospected reserves in Russia. The amount is comparable to natural gas
reserves in Urengoi, one of the biggest fields in the world.
Gazprom invested nearly one billion dollars into coalbed methane
projects in Kuzbass in 2008-2009. "The basis for a new industry has been
created from zero," Tuleyev commented. The Kedrovsky coal strip mine is to
produce 1.5 trillion cubic meters of gas.
"Due to the methane project Gazprom expands its resource base and
sales markets," Gazprom Deputy CEO Alexander Ananenkov told Tass.
From Kemerovo Medvedev will travel to Omsk to visit a local refinery
and chair a conference on energy development.

.Abkhazia to inaugurate incumbent president.

SUKHUM, February 12 (Itar-Tass) -- Abkhazia will inaugurate on Friday
incumbent President Sergei Bagapsh and Russia will make him a present by
restoring regular passenger flights to the ex-Soviet elite resort on the
Black Sea after a 15-year break.
Bagapsh, 60, won the presidential election in December with 59.37
percent of votes.
Presidential spokesman Christian Bzhania told Tass Russia, which
helped Abkhazia win independence from Georgia, will be represented by
Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov and 14 regional governors,
including Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
President Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia, which also won independence
from Georgia following armed intrusion in August 2008 that was crushed by
Russian forces, will also attend, as well as leader of breakaway Dniester
region of Moldova Igor Smirnov.
Venezuela and Nicaragua, which recognized Abkhazia's independence,
will be represented by the ambassadors to Russia.
Abkhazia's Interior Minister Otar Khetsia told Tass "unprecedented
security measures" had been taken in the republic. "Since February 11
interior agencies are operating in mounted regime in Sukhum and in all
other towns and regions of Abkhazia," he said.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin approved a draft agreement with
Abkhazia to restore regular air traffic to the Sukhum airport of Boguchany
that was closed for 15 years following the war with Georgia in 1993.
The first civilian plane to land there brought Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov in September 2008 after the Georgian intervention
in South Ossetia and Russian decision to recognize independence of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The Boguchary airport was built in the 1960s and could service up to
five thousand passengers a day.
Abkhazian Airlines Director General Vyacheslav Eshba told Tass the
airport is technically ready and recalled that during the conflict in
South Ossetia several dozen heavy transport planes landed there in two
days.
Presidential spokesman Bzhania said Bagapsh will pay an official visit
to Russia next week to meet President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister
Putin and Patriarch Kirill.
After recognizing Abkhazia's independence Russia opened a military
base there to train local servicemen and protect both land and sea border
with Georgia.
Congratulating Bagapsh with the New Year of 2010 Medvedev said on
December 30 that joint efforts "promoted the strengthening of the Republic
of Abkhazia as an independent democratic state. We succeeded to maintain
security and stability in the region and ensure peaceful life of the
Abkhazian people."
Putin said last year Russia planned to earmark 10.9 billion rubles to
develop Abkhazia in 2010-2011. He added Abkhazia may compete with Turkey
for Russian tourists. The prime minister said a million Russians annually
go to rest in Abkhazia against 2.5 million in Turkey. "That happens in
current conditions when far from everything has been restored in Gagry and
other resorts" following the war with Georgia, Putin said.

.Three quakes registered near Kurile Islands.

VLADIVOSTOK, February 12 (Itar-Tass) -- Three earthquakes were
registered deep underground near Kurile Islands in the past 24 hours.
Tremor force 3.9 Richter scale was registered overnight in the Sea of
Okhotsk near the western coast of the Iturup Island. The epicenter was 140
kilometers underground.
Two other quakes force 3.7 and 4.0 were also registered in the Sea of
Okhotsk at a depth of 120 to 250 kilometers below the seabed on Thursday.
The first occurred 250 kilometers west of the town of Severo-Kurilsk on
Paramushir Island and the other 70 kilometers southwest of the town of
Kurilsk on Iturup.
Sakhalin emergency center said no tremors were felt in any residential
settlement of the Kurile range.
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