Russia’s use of companies such as OAO Gazprom, the world’s largest natural gas producer, to buy energy assets in Africa may thwart U.S. efforts to limit the role of oil and gas as political weapons wielded from Moscow.
Getty Images Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (left) and Gazprom chief Alexei Miller visit the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk. Mr. Putin expressed concern about the country’s declining oil production and said the sector has reached a “critical juncture.”
State-run Gazprom offered last week to buy all of Libya’s spare oil and gas exports, after opening its first African office in Algeria a month earlier. It is also seeking to buy exploration licenses in Nigeria and to build a natural gas pipeline from there to Algeria, said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib Financial Corp. in Moscow.
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