Putin: Russia won’t monopolize oil and gas

President Vladimir Putin said Jan. 31 that the Russian state had no plans to monopolize the oil and gas sector but supported the creation of strong state-controlled firms, with foreign strategic investors and shareholders.

“The weather in the world energy sector is made by big international companies ... large, powerful, as a rule multinational companies,” he said. “We, too, must develop in this direction.”

At the same time, Putin stressed that Russia would not follow the example of OPEC countries or Norway, where the sector is dominated by the state.

“Yes, Gazprom is a company where the state has a controlling stake, but we said several years ago that we would return state control over the biggest oil and gas company in Russia and we have done this, done it openly,” he said. “But this was accompanied by liberalizing Gazprom shares — allowing investors from the market to become shareholders.”

He added that Gazprom has a strategic foreign investor in the form of Germany’s Ruhrgas. The state-owned Rosneft oil firm, which is preparing for an initial public offering of shares, would “develop along the same lines,” he said.

Investors have been looking carefully for signs that the state is taking greater control of the economy following the Kremlin’s move last year to reassert influence in the strategically important oil and gas sector.

In December, the state-owned Rosneft oil company acquired the biggest production unit of the Yukos oil company after its sale against huge back taxes in a politically charged case. Gazprom subsequently purchased private oil company Sibneft — putting 30 percent of Russia’s oil output under state control.

Speaking of other, independent oil firms, Putin said: “No one is planning to nationalize them; no one is planning to interfere in their business. They will develop according to market rules as private companies.”

Putin said that Russia plans for the nuclear industry to provide a quarter of all of Russia’s energy needs by 2030. It currently accounts for up to 17 percent of electric power in Russia, he said — as opposed to close to 80 percent in France.

—The Associated Press