No Plans to Split Gazprom: Novak

The Russian government is not looking to split up Gazprom, energy minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with RBC TV November 27.

In its November prospectus for the issue of new eurobonds, Gazprom for the first time admitted to the risk of such a reorganisation of the company. However, Novak told RBC TV: "The government is not discussing the division of Gazprom's businesses.”

The minister added: "As for gas exports, the position here is also that Gazprom should be the exporter of pipeline gas, while we have the possibility of gradual liberalisation - such decisions have already been made - of export of LNG."

Novak’s statement will disappoint Rosneft and its partner BP which, in June 2017, confirmed they were looking at jointly marketing some Rosneft-produced gas into Europe from 2019 if the Kremlin allowed - and Rosneft gas chief Vlada Rusakova, a former top Gazprom executive, outlined such a strategy in July.

The Gazprom eurobonds prospectus earlier this month had acknowledged: "The draft strategy for the development of energy in Russia until 2035 assumes the preservation of a monopoly on the export of Russian pipeline gas, but there is no certainty that the exclusive right of the company in the future will not be canceled or our business or operations will not be reorganised in any other way." 

RBK TV, Russia's first 24-hour business news television channel, is owned and operated by the RBK Group, owned by the Kremlin-loyal former Russian mining group Norilsk Nickel chief Mikhail Prokhorov.