Gazprom in Germany
November 20, 2006
"We have an extremely limited interest at the moment in investing in Germany," the managing director of Gazprom Germania, Hans-Joachim Gornig, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
'The minister for the environment (Sigmar Gabriel) is even talking about taking away the energy providers' networks," Gornig said in an interview.
"In Marxist terms, that's tantamount to expropriation," and would make any investor think twice, he added. Details of the interview were released ahead of publication on Monday.
No shortage of interest from Germany
A year ago, Gazprom announced plans for major investment in Germany, including the purchase of city utilities in order to gain access to consumer markets.
Gornig said his company was inundated with offers from city power companies to do business with them. As long as it was unclear what the government wanted, the issue was on ice as far as Gazprom was concerned, he added.
The Russian energy giant recently rebuffed speculations of acquiring a stake in Essen-based RWE, the number two energy company on the German market. Gazprom also had connections with EWE, a regional energy supplier in Oldenburg.