Moscow, May 20 (Intefax) - The government remains convinced that Gazprom must remain an integral entity.
“No plans are in the making to split the gas monopoly into an extraction and transportation companies,” Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta to come out on Monday.
“What matters most now is clear rules regulating access to the gas transportation infrastructure, as well as financial transparency within Gazprom in running different businesses, and also a clear understanding of what spending is connected with the gas transportation infrastructure,” he said.
He said Gazprom lacks transparency. “Perhaps the level of transparency is sufficient for the Gazprom management, but the Energy Ministry, for instance, lacks such understanding, which means it is not sufficient,” Dvorkovich said.
Concerning the plans to privatize Rosneft they remain in force. “There are no discussions here. A decision has been made to do this within five years. The pace is not a matter of discussions. The management has its position which it makes known to the government and president. The final decisions will be made by the government and president,” he said.
A discussion is continuing in the government and in the business community of private companies’ access to the Russian shelf. No final decision has been made so far, he said. “There are sharp issues, including the shelf, which are a matter of serious discussions. The final decision was to provide a larger number of licenses to Rosneft and Gazprom. Also, a discussion is underway of what should be done if these two companies lose interest in some sectors and if they decide to give them back. Shall we place the shelf sectors in private companies’ use or shall we keep them in an undistributed stock as a strategic reserve for the future generations?” he said.
Reports said earlier that experts regularly return to the idea of splitting Gazprom into independent extracting companies and separating the transport component from it.
