On September 14, President Putin approved of the government decision to swap part of Gazprom stock and all the Rosneft assets.
Russia was once a country with a single oil-and-gas complex but market reforms led to its artificial division into two ministries. It was two years ago when Gazprom's Rem Vyakhirev resigned to give room to Alexei Miller that the idea of uniting the Rosneft and Gazprom assets came into light. As the rumour about Gazprom's financial troubles spread, the Russian government was busy whipping up the necessity of uniting the oil and gas industries' assets to build up capitalisation and to settle the problem of state-run concern's low efficiency.
In the opinion of Gennady Shmal, president of the Union of Russian Oil and Gas Industrialists, this decision is to reinforce Russia's position on the world market. "Russia longs for major oil-and-gas corporations which could offer competition to world oil giants," he said.
On the other hand, Russia keeps negotiating its WTO admission and has already pledged to get rid of its natural monopolies. The consolidation of the share package is the first step toward the liberalisation of the company's stock market, according to Alexey Miller. The slow process of Gazprom share market liberalisation can take half a year or even more. The government now owns 38 percent of Gazprom shares directly and 17.5 percent of treasure bills on the accounts of subsidiaries indirectly. To liberalise Gazprom shares, the state should gain the controlling bloc of Gazprom shares.
Gazprom share market liberalisation is targeted at unification of the internal and external stock markets. The shares of the Russian gas monopoly are being now traded separately for residents and non-residents, which results in the higher cost of Gazprom shares abroad and their absence from some Russian exchanges. In the opinion odf Sergey Glazer from Vostok Nafta Investment Limited, Gazprom shares are traded at heavily regulated markets while being inadequately represented in the basic portfolios of Russian and Western investors. Stemming from the size of its business and the volume of capitalisation, Gazprom should have a share of the 40percent worth in the Russian stock index as against its present three-five percent.. The unification of the external and domestic markets will be indisputably an encouraging sign for investors, making Gazprom an investor-attractive company.
Meanwhile, experts are at one that the unification of gas and oil assets will add up to state supervision over such a strategic branch as the oil-and-gas industry. In the context of the Russian president's statement on September 13, one can speak about power concentration on both political and economic levels.
