"The companies are working now. They say that a month or two will be enough for them," the minister said to journalists Friday.
He stressed once again that the very structure and quality of the transaction "are much more important that the pace at which the work is done".
Meanwhile, Igor Artemyev, chief of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS), said that his office had not received any documents concerning the Gazprom-Rosneft merger.
Previously, Anatoly Golomolzin, FAS' deputy head, explained that under the law the deal needed permission of the anti-monopoly bodies to be made.
To quote him, "this is a deal which, by the size of its assets, falls under the respective articles of the law on competition and the restriction of monopolistic activity on the commodity markets."
At the same time, Anatoly Golomolzin believes that the Gazprom-Rosneft merger will have no tangible effect on the economic concentration of the oil markets.
