U.S. hits corruption in Russian gas deals

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U.S. officials say Russia has been using its control of Soviet-era pipelines to squeeze Central Asian sellers of natural gas while setting up corrupt trading intermediaries whose only apparent purpose is to milk huge profits.

Alarmed by a recent price dispute between Russia and Ukraine that disrupted vital gas supplies to Europe, the Bush administration raised doubts about Russia's fitness to chair the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries, beginning with a finance ministers' meeting in Moscow this week.

The State Department has been talking to Russia and its European customers seeking to change Moscow's practices, but European officials said they are reluctant to interfere in Moscow's trading policies.

U.S. officials noted a huge gap between what Russia pays to import gas from Central Asia and what it charges for the gas in Europe, while middlemen rake off vast profits.

"It's a fascinating story, because it combines corruption with economic reform and Russia's ambition to dominate its neighbors," said a senior State Department official who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. "It's a great story, but it's an ugly one, too."

Gazprom, the Russian natural gas monopoly, buys gas from Central Asia for less than $50 per 1,000 cubic meters and then sells it to European countries at prices as high as $260.

Even though Gazprom could handle transactions at both ends, much of the trading is carried out by middlemen, said U.S. officials who briefed The Washington Times in an attempt to call attention to the problem.

"These mysterious shady trading firms have no purpose," the senior official said. "They have been a source of corruption for years. They are instruments for arrangements by which some people buy cheap and sell expensive."

The official singled out RosUkrEnergo, established in 2004 as an intermediary between Gazprom and the Ukrainian state gas company Naftohaz. RosUkrEnergo was at the center of an agreement between Russia and Ukraine last month that ended their bitter price dispute.

"It's said to be run by people with organized criminal ties, as well as good Kremlin connections," the official said of RosUkrEnergo, which is co-owned by Gazprom and an Austrian-registered company, Centragas.