Gazprom
Russia has a huge amount of natural resources. The country has the 8th largest oil reserves and are the world’s biggest producer of oil. Russia’s natural resources make the country very powerful internationally because of the world’s increasing need of energy. In the 90’s, a lot of the Russian oil industry was privatized. When Vladimir Putin became president in June 2000, he began to establish state control of large companies e.g. the large oil and gas company Gazprom. He did this to prevent mismanagement and personal pilfering. He replaced the chairman of Gazprom with Alexander Medvedev who is currently the prime minister of Russia. Today, approximately half of Gazprom is owned by the state. Gazprom is the leading supplier of natural gas and the Russian pipelines are, through the state, completely owned by Gazprom and as a result of this, the company has had a legal export monopoly on natural gasses since 2006. In 2011, Gazprom produced approximately 500 billion cubic meters of natural and 32 million tons of oil.
Russia is the 3rd largest electricity producer in the world and the 5th largest renewable electricity producer. Russia’s renewable energy is mainly based on hydroelectricity built along the large rivers in European Russia. Russia has a huge hydroelectric potential, which is yet to be utilized. Russia was the first country to develop civilian nuclear power and is today the 4th largest nuclear energy producer in the world.
Gazprom is part of the political concept ´National Champions´ introduced by Vladimir Putin in which large companies is expected to seek not only profit, but also to advance Russia’s national interests. For example, Gazprom sells gas inside Russia at a lower price than the global market price. This is done as a form of subsidy to the public. In 2008, Gazprom activities made up 10% of the Russian gross domestic product.
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