The company buys the largest gas supplier in the Southern Urals

Gazprom is ready to cede the market of the Chelyabinsk region to Novatek. As Kommersant learned, by the beginning of the heating season the deal to sell a controlling stake in Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Chelyabinsk LLC to an independent gas producer will be completed. According to experts, the entire asset could cost $50–100 million. They attribute Gazprom’s refusal from the Chelyabinsk market to its strategy focused on export markets.

Several sources close to both companies told Kommersant that by the beginning of the heating season the deal for the sale of a controlling stake in Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Chelyabinsk LLC will be completed, where Novatek OJSC will be the buyer. “The purchase of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Chelyabinsk is a settled issue. “Novatek is buying everything, including the property complex and the subscriber service system in the Chelyabinsk region,” said one of them. Gazprom Mezhregiongaz and Novatek declined to comment officially yesterday. According to experts, Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Chelyabinsk LLC could cost from $50 million to $100 million.

Novatek, we recall, entered the Chelyabinsk region in November 2010, having by that time occupied 25% of the regional gas market. At that time, Novatek was already supplying gas to Fortum, MMK and Mechel. At the end of June 2011, the main supplier of electrical and thermal energy in the Southern Urals, the Fortum company, entered into a gas supply agreement with Novatek until 2015 (the contract volume is about 3 billion cubic meters of gas per year, 80% of gas consumption " Fortum" in the region). During the conclusion of the agreement with Novatek, the governor of the Chelyabinsk region, Mikhail Yurevich, stated that in the future, Novatek’s share in the region’s gas supply will reach 90%. In 2011, the company plans to supply up to 15 billion cubic meters to the Chelyabinsk region. m.

Then Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Chelyabinsk (“Chelyabinskregiongaz” before the renaming) stated that they were not concerned about Novatek’s plans to strengthen its position in the market. “Novatek’s efforts to expand its customer base are understandable; the market is the market, and its driving force is healthy competition. But those who are serious in business, I want to especially emphasize this, understand well the relationship between scale and reliability,” explained the then general director of Chelyabinskregiongaz, Yuri Fischer.

Novatek is the largest Russian independent producer of natural gas and the second largest natural gas producer in Russia after OJSC Gazprom. At the end of 2010, OAO Novatek accounted for about 6% of all-Russian natural gas production and more than 10% of all-Russian gas supplies transported through the Unified Gas Supply System. According to the report of OJSC Novatek under IFRS for the first quarter of 2011, the company's revenue amounted to 44.8 billion rubles, net profit - 18.8 billion rubles.

LLC Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Chelyabinsk (formerly LLC Chelyabinskregiongaz) is a subsidiary of LLC Gazprom Mezhregiongaz (a group of enterprises of OJSC Gazprom). The annual volume of gas supplies to the Chelyabinsk region is 11.7 billion cubic meters. m of total annual consumption of 14.9 billion cubic meters. m. According to the company's official website, as of May 31, 2011, the debt of the region's utilities sector organizations to Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Chelyabinsk amounted to 640 million rubles.

According to analysts, Gazprom is leaving the Chelyabinsk region to focus on export supplies. “OJSC Gazprom is implementing its strategy of export supplies and does not intend to increase its assets in the domestic market. Independent companies, such as Novatek, will operate in the domestic market,” notes Andrey Polishchuk, an analyst at the investment company BrokerCreditService. The expert clarified that Novatek continues to expand into Gazprom’s traditional Russian markets. Mr. Polishchuk recalled that in 2010, Novatek had already acquired a 51% stake in the Yamal gas production enterprise OJSC Sibneftegaz, owned by OJSC Gazprombank. Senior analyst at IFC Metropol Sergei Vakhrameev partially agrees with him. “Novatek needs full-scale access to gas end consumers. For Gazprom this is an insignificant deal,” he added.

Elena Nikishchenko

Novatek will play for Gazprom