Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- OAO Gazprom, the world’s biggest natural-gas producer, is in talks with Brazilian state- controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA on partnerships, an executive of the Russian company said.

“Today we met with Petrobras and decided to take new steps in our relations,” Gazprom’s Deputy Chief Executive Alexander Medvedev told reporters at the World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires. “We are looking into upstream opportunities, LNG opportunities, carbon opportunities.”

Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled company, supplies a quarter of Europe’s natural gas. The company seeks to supply 25 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas, or LNG, by 2020, Medvedev said.

The company plans to open a regional office in Brazil before the end of this year “to look at opportunities in the country as well as to coordinate activities in neighboring countries like Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina,” Medvedev said.

Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras is investing $174.4 billion in the five years through 2013, the world’s largest corporate spending plan, as it prepares to tap fields that include the biggest oil find in the Americas since 1976.

To contact the reporters on this story: Helder Marinho in Rio de Janeiro at hmarinho@bloomberg.netRodrigo Orihuela in Buenos Aires on rorihuela@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 8, 2009 12:14 EDT