Gazprom is facing increased pressures at home, on Russia’s domestic gas market. Several of its key positions have been under discussion in recent months, ever since President Putin announced his return to power. There is no sign that the situation is easing for the Russian monopoly.
Gazprom’s prevalence on Russia’s domestic markets relies on one strategic compromise. The gas company accepts low domestic gas price for household consumption on two conditions - if taxes remain low, and if it can maintain a monopoly position for gas exports. In this way, it ensures high compensatory benefits. Since 2007, the Russian State, in order to abide by liberal international trade laws, has gradually allowed, and enabled, domestic and European Union prices to converge. At the same time, as it earns more, Gazprom is requested to pay higher taxes. But the tax level grows faster than the domestic price for gas consumption, thereby reducing Gazprom’s benefits. Russian political authorities, mainly Vladimir Putin, have acted and are acting very cautiously regarding domestic gas price growth. The last thing they want to do is to further inflame social contestation.
This is market liberalization, but managed à la russe. In the near future Gazprom could see its monopoly position on domestic and export on gas being challenged. Of course, the Russian gas market will not necessarily become highly competitive in the short-term between several more or less equal independent energy players. From a monopoly, it may however undertake a reconfiguration and change into a duopoly, centred on Rosneft and Gazprom with other minor actors siding with the former or the latter.
Rosneft’s recent acquisition of a stake in Itera is clearly a move to attempt to compete with Gazprom in the gas sector. All together, Rosneft and Itera achieve 26 bcm, more than doubling Rosneft’s own production. To reach the 100 bcm in 2020 announced by Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s CEO earlier or even to fulfil the already signed contracts for the coming years, Rosneft will surely have to maximize the output of several fields in Russia but also abroad, particularly in Turkmenistan, Latvia and Estonia where Itera has promising reserves and gas assets. Additionally, considering that the main clients for Rosneft/Itera are to be the German E.ON, the Italian Enel and the Finnish Fortum and that Rosneft’s rapprochement with BP is in sight anyway, higher pressures to deprive Gazprom from its exclusive export rights must be expected and will probably be successful.
In the medium-term, Gazprom’s structure could undergo radical changes. The idea of its dismantlement is circulating among Moscow liberal-minded groups, who previously organized itself around Alexei Kudrin and who gained substantial influence during, respectively, Medvedev’s presidency and Kudrin’s tenure as Minister of Finance. Today, while Putin has returned to the Presidency, the liberal reformists have joined Medvedev at the government and continue to weigh towards further Russia’s market liberalization and increased competition, despite Kudrin’s departure. Apparently, Gazprom is coming under pressure from two sides.