Russian Companies’ Shake-Ups Hint At Growing Central Hands-On Approach

Russian companies continued their shake-ups over the last days, announcing new appointments in line with the trend started some weeks ago. The moves come at a moment the Kremlin is increasingly showing a hands-on approach on national resources. This might even translate into increased powers for Energy Minister Alexander Novak.

On Tuesday, Lukoil announced that Alexander Leyfrid, the former head of Lukoil-Perm, has been appointed General Director of Lukoil-Komi and also Vice-president of Lukoil. 

‘The new appointments reflect the strategic importance the company attaches to the development of the Timan-Pechora province, including the development of Yaregskoye field of high-viscosity oil’ reads a note published on the company’s website.  

A few days before, Gazprom had announced that Oleg Andreev will head Gazprom Projectirovaniye, a new specialist company focused on design assets.

“The design phase not only specifies technical solutions for our future construction projects, but also to a large extent determines their economic features. Consolidation of Gazprom’s design assets will help establish uniform standards of the design activity and considerably improve the work efficiency” Gazprom Management Committee Chairman Alexey Miller commented during a conference in St. Petersburg. 

Meanwhile, according to rumours, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak should meet with ExxonMobil’s CEO Rex Tillerson on Wednesday, before flying to Brussels on Friday where he should discuss a summer package for Ukraine with officials from Kiev and the European Union.  

Novak is increasing his exposure. Earlier this week, experts told Natural Gas Europe he could soon get important positions in more than one Russian energy company.