A new law means that Gazprom is now free to buy any gas producing company in Russia:
There are now no obstacles for Gazprom to set up monopoly not only on exports but also on the whole gas production in Russia.
I imagine that the shareholders in a lot of Russian gas companies are about to be made offers that they cannot refuse in the coming months, as Gazprom digs into cash reserves that are almost as substantial as its gas reserves.
(Thanks to Ruminations on Russia for the heads up).
{ 2 comments }
This puts me to mind of America’s dealings with the Native Americans. It started with promises of fair compensation and they ended up on reservations.
The difference being, of course, that (a) Americans didn’t have a declining population and a failed state, and (b) they saw Native Americans, albeit perversely, as foreigners, whilst Russians are eating their own family members alive.
How long will it be before Gazprom, which is only the Kremlin in sheeps clothing, simply starts taking what it wants?
And more importantly, how long before the whole utterly corrupt apparatus, not just of Gazprom but of the Russian state itself, comes tumbling down?
Interestingly, there’s a theory that Putin will take control of Gazprom in 2008. So perhaps he is simply transferring the assets of the Kremlin to the corporation. The USSR became Russia, and Russia will then become Gazprom. Which will become bankrupt, and then become nothing, whereupon Russia will be, as the Atlantic predicted, “Zaire with Permafrost.”
At least during Stalin’s time, Russian apathy had the excuse that he’d kill you if you resisted. And now? The window is open for opposition, there is nothing like Stalin-scale killing or jailing, and yet the Russian people still stand idly by like cowards, watching their children’s future be obliterated.
Sigh.
Historically, the Russian people has reacted extremely bad to monopoly and opression but now it sort of amazes me how they are being led to the kill by state controlled tv and apparent richness. It reminds me a lot of how Portugal slowly degenerated into a Fascist regime in the thirties all thanks to the (d)illusion of prosperity and nationalism. You know the story: if you put a live frog on a pan with cold water and slowly rise up the heat it will stay in there until it dies boiled…
Comments on this entry are closed.