Russia’s energy giant with a split personality

There is a joke doing the rounds about the Russian gas monopoly: how did they put out the Olympic flame after the Turin Winter Games? Gazprom turned off the tap.

It would be funnier if it were not so close to the bone. In the depths of Gazprom’s headquarters — a blue glass and granite skyscraper in southern Moscow — there is a control room dominated by a 20ft-high electronic model of Eurasia’s gas network.

BIG NUMBERS

Gazprom . . .

controls 16 per cent of the world’s gas reserves

produced an estimated 547 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas last year

plans gas output of 580-590 bcm by 2020, and 610-630 bcm by 2030

accounts for up to 8 per cent of Russia’s GDP and a fifth of its budget revenues

provides gas to 80,000 Russian towns and villages and 122,000 companies

employs 330,000 people

The Times