In the first nine months of last year, Gazprom’s net profits leapt 80 percent. Roaring past industry behemoths Shell and BP last year, the state-owned natural gas monopoly is now the world’s second-largest energy company after Exxon-Mobil.

But critics say the conglomerate, which owns a bank, soccer team, and media wing, is much more than the successful new kid on the global energy block. They describe the company as the Kremlin’s flagship – and chief battering ram – in a strategy to restore state control of Russia’s booming but petroleum-dependent economy, and use that accumulated power to further Moscow’s agenda at home and abroad.

Since 2004, state control of Russia’s oil industry has jumped from around 7 percent to over 35 percent, and is set to grow further this year, experts say. Gazprom and the state oil company Rosneft, headed by Kremlin-appointed officials, have been the key agents in takeovers of private oil companies such as Yukos, Sibneft, and, late last year, the Shell-run Sakhalin-2 project on Russia’s Pacific coast.

via::CSMonitor

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(via politricks.mnp)