ABSTRACT
Russian state-owned and private energy companies are leading actors in the country’s energy sector and foreign energy policy. The behavior of the Russian state-owned oil-gas companies to intervene in the political processes domestically in the 1990s accumulated experience and pattern for these companies to pursue and follow in the foreign energy interactions in the 2000s. The USSR Ministry of Gas Industry was reorganized into the State Gas Concern “Gazprom” in 1989. The company owns the world’s most extensive gas transmission system in Russia’s territory. The main assets of Rosneft were created during the Soviet Union period. Rosneft strives to expand its international presence in the most promising oil and gas regions of the world and increase its resource base. The government established Transneft in 1993 as the largest oil transportation company based on 16 oil pipeline enterprises of the former USSR. Rosatom is one of the largest global nuclear energy companies owned by the Russian state.
