Gazpromneft Is in No Hurry to Leave

Gazprom will not call off the merger deal with Rosneft because of the situation with Yuganskneftegaz. Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller confirmed this information yesterday. A new plan for taking over the oil company will be implemented, although the details of this plan are still unknown even to the government. It is not inconceivable that OOO Gazpromneft, which was sold by Gazprom to unknown persons, will play an important role in this plan.


The first meeting of Gazprom's board of directors after the sale of Gazpromneft is scheduled for today. As expected earlier, the board is to give post factum approval of the sale, which Gazprom's management made on December 20. Yesterday, however, two government officials – Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref and Minister of Energy Viktor Khristenko – said that so far they had not received any materials from Gazprom regarding the upcoming board meeting. What is more, according to a report from Gazprom's press service, the agenda of today's meeting contains no questions relating to the new options for merging Gazprom and Rosneft or items connected with a reversal of the decisions on Gazpromneft already made.

Without a reversal by the board, all of Gazprom's previous orders concerning Gazpromneft remain in force. It is still not known whether any of Gazprom's managers signed an order to transfer 10.7% of Gazprom's shares to the fixed assets of Gazpromneft and at what price. If such a document exists, Gazpromneft's new owners could well apply to buy up these shares at the price specified in the order and privatize Rosneft without Gazprom's participation. Officially, it makes no difference to the government where they get 10.7% of the gas monopoly's shares to establish control over Gazprom.

According to Viktor Khristenko, the question of deals involving Gazprom's property is within the competence of the board, and the board, together with the Russian government, must approve a new merger strategy for Gazprom and Rosneft. Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin expressed concern about the situation and spoke of a $7 billion reduction in Gazprom's capitalization. The minister believes that “the opaque actions of the government”, of which he himself is a member, are to blame for this. Thus, a “revolt of the government representatives” at today's board of directors meeting cannot be ruled out – they will probably demand the disclosure of information on exactly how Gazprom intends to merge with Rosneft in future and who got Gazpromneft.

Whether German Gref, Viktor Khristenko, and other government representatives on the board will receive answers to their questions is unknown. Especially since the future of Gazpromneft is unclear – no information about its liquidation has been confirmed. A source close to Gazprom's management told Kommersant yesterday that Gazpromneft's new owners have no plans to liquidate it: it will simply be renamed and may subsequently participate in the formation of a new oil company based on the oil assets of Gazprom and Rosneft.

We note that Aleksey Miller, who is on a visit to France, first commented on the situation around the sale of Gazpromneft yesterday, but his statement did not clarify anything. At a meeting with French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and president of Gaz de France, Jean Francois Cirelli, he said: “Gazprom is approaching the final stage of the merger with Rosneft, after which the company will be able to work much more actively with French companies on both oil and gas projects”.

( Kommersant, 12.23.2004)