Gazprom may reduce its capital investment for gas production and transportation by as much as 30 percent this year after demand and prices slumped, chief financial officer Andrei Kruglov said Thursday.

The estimate is grimmer than last week's forecast from Gazprom deputy chief executive Alexander Ananenkov, who said investment in 2009 could fall by 20 percent.

"These are just some of the options," Kruglov said at a news conference, referring to the two predictions.

Gazprom, the world's largest gas company, currently plans to invest 637 billion rubles ($20.4 billion) in exploration, development, production and pipelines. The cut would apply to this amount, not the 920 billion rubles of total investment, which includes asset purchases, Kruglov said.

A 30 percent deduction would bring the expenditures to 446 billion rubles, down from 531 billion rubles spent on the same purposes last year.

Despite the efforts to save on capital investment, Gazprom went ahead earlier this year with its option to buy 20 percent of its oil arm, Gazprom Neft, from Italy's Eni, paying $4.1 billion — well above the market price. Gazprom is also planning to announce later this month that it will pay Eni and Enel $1.5 billion for 51 percent of a company that owns two Siberian gas fields.

The company's spending cuts likely will not be divided evenly between production and transportation. Given the falling demand, the company will probably lower the budget for production expenditures more than for pipelines, Kruglov said.

Gazprom last week decided to delay by a year the start of its huge Bovanenkovo field on the Yamal Peninsula.

Company management will submit a revised corporate budget to the board in September, basing it on performance in the first half of the year, Kruglov said.

Gazprom has to repay about 380 billion rubles, or $12 billion, in debt and interest this year, Kruglov said. Despite this and the lower sales revenues, the company still hoped to generate positive cash flow, said Mikhail Roseyev, chief of the company's consolidated accounting department.

The state-controlled company is having its annual shareholders meeting Friday, which is expected to approve the lowest dividends since 2000 of 36 kopeks per share. This represents just 13 percent of the previous dividend payment of 2.66 rubles per share.

nTotal is interested in inviting Gazprom and other Russian companies as partners in its African projects, the French company's Russia chief told reporters Thursday on the sidelines of an industry conference.

On Wednesday, Total teamed up with Novatek to produce gas at a minor Yamal field, gaining a foothold in the key region. Last week, Total sold a stake in a Dutch refinery to LUKoil.

"The international companies will have partnerships in Russia, but the Russian companies also have to be thinking about their activity abroad," he said.