The Russian prime minister has welcomed an initiative to use blockchain in agreements over gas supplies by the country’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom, local finance news outlet Vestifinance reports on April 4. The news agency operates under Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR), a major TV channel.

The head of Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom, Alexey Miller, has met with Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev to report on the development of applications powered by distributed ledger technology (DLT).

According to Miller, Gazprom has carried out substantive work with Russia’s state-owned bank Gazprombank, and has developed a prototype model that will enable contracts to be made automatically using blockchain technology. The platform intends to allow data sharing between all the participants of a certain contract, as well as to improve the security of data, Miller explained.

At the initial stage, the project is planned to be tested solely by industrial customers, Miller noted.

According to the report, Medvedev endorsed Gazprom’s project, claiming that blockchain technology has great prospects in Russian industry, as well as in activity by companies such as Gazprom.

Medvedev also highlighted that the new initiative is important as it represents a real use-case of blockchain implementation, stating that the technology is much hyped but often not really understood.

Earlier in February, Gazprom’s oil subsidiary Gazprom Neft tested blockchain tech implementation in the supply chain of logistical resources.

And in late 2018, Gazprom Neft partnered with a Russian subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank International to issue a bank guarantee via blockchain.