16-11-04 The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) is concerned over the aftermath of a Gazprom-Rosneft merger, the head of the service, Igor Artemyev, told. Artemyev was quoted as saying that Rosneft itself is not dominating on the Russian market, and the situation in the company will not change radically even after the merger. That is why FAS cannot outlaw such a deal under the current legislation.
"However, we are not concealing our concerns," Artemyev stressed.

He reminded that the Gazprom gas giant has recently purchased a rather sizable share of stock of the Unified Energy Systems of Russia power utility.
"We are now intensively considering whether we should possibly restrain in a certain way appetites of natural monopolies," Artemyev stressed. He added that the issue of "how and when this should be done" is to be discussed separately.
"When one natural monopoly buys another one, one thinks about doubly a monopoly," he stressed. "When it besides enters the oil market, this is a monopoly cubed," Artemyev added.

He believes serious problems "may appear in the future if the government fails to realize negative aftermaths of such a strengthening of the biggest natural monopoly on different markets".
Focusing on a possible joining of ZarubezhNeft to Gazprom, Artemyev noted that he is concerned by the fact that "Gazprom is using its market power, which will not contribute to the development of competitiveness on the oil market".