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DOW Chemical has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom to develop and implement greenhouse gas reduction programmes at Gazprom sites around the world.

The agreement will see the two companies hunt down opportunities to implement efficient technologies and processes developed by Dow at Gazprom sites around the world, in order to allow Gazprom to cut its carbon emission and pocket carbon credits. Dow could use some of these credits to offset its own emissions while Gazprom could trade in the remainder.

"Through this agreement with Gazprom, Dow products and technologies will have a channel to global oil and gas markets, and we will have access to certified emission reductions," said Rich Wells, Dow vice president for energy and climate change.

Russia is relatively rich in carbon credits as defined by the Kyoto Protocol and stands to earn an estimated $6-9b from selling off excess carbon credits to other countries. This is because in 1990, the baseline for industrial emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, Russia’s industry was much larger than today, and very dirty and inefficient by current standards. This gives Russia plenty of credits in hand with great potential for making more by implementing relatively easy upgrades.