Russian Gas Giant Battles Negative Energy

"We are not an instrument of policy," says Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev. (Paul O'driscoll - Bloomberg)

For a company that has a market capitalization about the size of Microsoft or Citigroup and natural gas reserves that would make most OPEC members blush, Gazprom still finds itself with a lot of explaining to do.

The Russian state-controlled natural gas monopoly has openly proclaimed its goal of becoming the world's dominant oil and gas company, and in the process it has raised hackles everywhere, from neighboring Ukraine to the boardrooms of major international oil companies and the capitals of Europe and the United States.

It has jacked up gas prices to once-subsidized neighboring countries, pressured U.S. and European companies for stakes in overseas projects and pipelines, blocked access to its pipeline network in order to leverage its way into existing exploration deals and shelved a prized gas project because it wasn't satisfied with foreign bids.

Now the company is seeking to polish its image in the United States, where it has a small office in Houston looking for investment opportunities. Moreover, among the biggest Gazprom shareholders are U.S.-based emerging-market mutual funds.

This week, the company's deputy chairman, Alexander Medvedev, will attend a hockey game between a Gazprom-sponsored team and former Boston Bruins players. Yesterday he spoke at a U.S.-Russia Business Council luncheon at the exclusive Metropolitan Club here. And on Monday he delivered a speech at Harvard Business School about whether energy can be a bridge between the United States and Russia.

But there hasn't been much construction work on that bridge, one energy company executive quipped. And recently Gazprom has come under fire for using its Russian state-backed muscle to expand beyond its core business into areas from real estate and hotels to media, petrochemical and oil deals while neglecting its own massive natural gas business.

In a report issued Monday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris called the expansion of state ownership a "step back" for Russia's economy. "Of particular concern is the state-owned gas monopolist OAO Gazprom's seemingly insatiable appetite for asset acquisitions, often at the expense of a focus on its core business," the report said. "At the same time, the absence of any significant steps to restructure the gas industry as a whole constrains the growth of other producers even as concern about the sustainability of Russian gas supply is growing."

Gazprom has responded to growing criticism by unveiling a $40 billion investment program devoted solely to bringing on new gas production in the Yamal Peninsula in northwest Siberia. But yesterday, Russia's government put off a plan to boost subsidized domestic natural gas prices to world market levels over the next five to 10 years, a move that would increase revenues for Gazprom and tame Russia's surging domestic demand.

"We are not an instrument of policy because it cannot comply with our commercial structure," Medvedev said in an interview yesterday.

But ever since a contract dispute with Ukraine led to a cutoff of Russian gas exports on New Year's Day, Europeans who rely heavily on Russian gas have worried about security of supply. Russia, meanwhile, has argued that Gazprom needs to expand into the European and U.S. distribution business to assure Russia of "security of demand."

Many experts say that Gazprom is unwieldy and poorly run and will have trouble meeting gas delivery obligations regardless of the politics of supply. Vladimir Milov, president of the Institute of Energy Policy in Moscow and former deputy energy minister, said yesterday that Gazprom had spent $18 billion in the past three years on acquisitions outside the gas sector, more than it has spent in the past decade to increase gas production.

Gazprom's relatively flat gas output was no surprise, Milov said. "To grow, you have to invest," he said. As long as Gazprom was a monopoly, he added, it would have little incentive to bolster production in Russia. "Monopolies are motivated to conquer new markets, not to develop markets already conquered."