Gazprom is disappointed in its European assets

Gazprom is reviewing its long-term strategy in the European gas market. According to Alexei Miller, the company now isn’t sure that it will continue to be interested in its marketing assets in Europe. Thereby Gazprom recognized that the basis of the market for the monopoly has changed for it in unfavourable way - as because of the decline in consumption, also because of the hostile attitude of the European authorities to the company.

For the first time Gazprom has admitted that it is ready to abandon its long-term approach on the purchase of retail assets on the European market. "Apparently, now the European market is not a consumer market, and hence the question is - whether it is necessary to create a chain from production to sales on this market,” – the company’s head Alexei Miller said yesterday. He added that "it doesn’t mean that Gazprom will abandon some projects, but they will undergo some changes". Mr. Miller also repeated his previous thesis that Europe has lost the competition for liquefied gas to Asia, the EU's strategy on diversification of supply "has failed, and hence the (gas) hubs are not liquid". According to him, "a type new of gas pricing is coming, and this pricing can oust the European hubs". Gazprom couldn’t explain what kind of "new pricing" was meant.