There’s an interesting article in today’s Washington Post which debates the fate of Gazprom.  The company is crucial to the Russian economy, accounting for 12% of its total exports and employing almost half a million people.  As an indication of how closely tied it is to the Kremlin, the company’s last three heads have been appointed by Vladimir Putin, making Gazprom ‘the chief means of rewarding Putin’s inner circle’; and the President ‘calls on Gazprom‘, says the article, when he needs funding for social development projects and political campaigns alike.

But Will Englund and Kathy Lally present evidence to indicate that the Russian behemoth’s lack of creativity in the face of slumping prices and demand may mean that it is on the way out as the leading instrument of the energy industry.  The evidence includes the sale of Gazprom’s subsidiaries to competitors, and a new ‘favoritism’ towards domestic competitor Novatek, which may be the one to break Gazprom’s exporting monopoly.