The following is a letter sent to the Editor of the Financial Times:
The only real way for the Russian government’s offer of independence of Gazprom’s pipelines to be credible and to work fully is for these pipeline assets to be spun off into a separate company (“Russia ‘ready to end’ Gazprom’s pipeline monopoly” FT February 13) .
This will prove that 'arms-length' really means that and that Gazprom will not be able to influence capacity, supply and/or priority decisions.
There is no reason for Gazprom to have control of the pipelines as well as of production. They can compete for the distribution access with everyone else.
Onésimo Alvarez-Moro
See article:
Russia is prepared to allow independent gas producers equal access to its export pipelines, breaking the monopoly of the state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, the country's finance minister said.
However, Alexei Kudrin, the finance minister, refused to give any timeframe for the change when he spoke after a meeting of Group of Eight finance ministers in Moscow which focused heavily on energy security. Gazprom made clear its continued opposition to such a move.
The meeting came just weeks after Gazprom cut off gas to Ukraine in a pricing dispute, leading to sharp falls in supplies to western Europe.
Several European countries, led by France, had called before the G8 meeting for Russia to allow independent gas producers to sell gas directly to Europe, offering in return longer-term supply contracts and help with financing further pipelines.
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