Novatek provides Gazprom with competition

摘要

The emergence of Novatek, Russia's largest independent gas company, is being watched with interest. The company clearly has strong government backing and is starting to make inroads into a sector dominated by state-run monolith Gazprom. Most recently, Novatek signed two memoranda of cooperation with France's Total, which would see the latter take a 12.08% stake in the company for $4 billion. Total will also get a 20% stake in Novatek's Yamal LNG project. Unusually for a large upstream gas project in Russia, Gazprom has no participation in the project.