Gazprom goes under the knife

It was a pleasant and unexpected surprise. On May 30 in a boardroom showdown between president Vladimir Putin and Rem Vyakhirev, the chief executive officer of Gazprom – Russia’s gas monopoly and what the Russian press likes to call a state-within-the-state – Putin ousted what one investor calls “one of the more encrusted of Russia’s vested interests”.

“It was not just a fundamental victory, but a symbolic one,” says Dmitry Abdayev, an oil and gas analyst with United Financial Group, a Moscow brokerage.