Competition record
Gazprom
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
Gazprom is the Russian company that supplies pipeline gas into Europe. The EU gas case ended in commitments on Eastern European supply, and the library status is remedy.
Overview
Gazprom produces natural gas in Russia and moves it by pipeline to European customers. In much of Eastern Europe those pipelines were, for years, the supply a national gas company could actually get. Long-term contracts tied those customers to Gazprom's gas and to Gazprom's pricing.
The European Commission investigated that supply as an abuse of dominance: territorial limits that kept gas from moving between countries, and pricing practices aimed at customers who had little alternative pipeline gas. The case covered Eastern European gas supply.
Gazprom offered commitments, and the Commission made them binding. The commitments changed how gas would be supplied and priced in those markets, including the ability of customers to move gas across borders. The library status is remedy. The outcome was commitments, so this profile states no fine.
Competition footprint
Pipeline gas into Eastern Europe was the product, and for many buyers it had no ready substitute.
Territorial restrictions in gas contracts wall off one country's supply from the next.
Commitments are the remedy the library records, in place of a fine.
Consumer & business angle
Eastern European gas utilities and large industrial users were the contract customers.
Households in those countries ultimately burn the gas the utility bought under those contracts.
What to watch
- Whether the supply and resale commitments were honored in the countries they covered.
- How European gas buyers diversify away from a single pipeline supplier, which is an energy-security question around the same contracts.
Markets
pipeline natural gas · Eastern European gas supply · natural gas supply · Central and Eastern Europe energy
Also known as: gazprom