Via The New York Times, an in-depth look at Gazprom.  As the article notes:

“…It’s hard to overemphasize Gazprom’s role in the Russian economy. It’s a sprawling company that raked in $91 billion last year; it employs 432,000 people, pays taxes equal to 20 percent of the Russian budget and has subsidiaries in industries as disparate as farming and aviation.

The company is a major supplier of natural gas to Europe, and it is becoming an important source of gas to fast-growing Asian markets like China and South Korea… If crude oil and natural gas are considered together, Gazprom’s combined daily production of energy is greater than that of Saudi Arabia.

…Over the next two years, Gazprom plans to triple its capital outlays in its core business of exploring, extracting and transporting gas — just to maintain its current production levels. Investments will rise to 969 billion rubles, or $45 billion, in 2010 from 330 billion rubles, or $14 billion, last year.

To help finance a heady expansion into the Arctic, Gazprom is working on ways to push up natural gas prices in Russia and in the export market.

Last year, it floated the idea of creating a cartel for natural gas, similar to OPEC’s oil cartel. Iran supports the idea, but Algeria, Qatar and others are uncommitted. A gas cartel would allow Russia to increase its influence in global energy markets, but at this point it’s unclear how hard it will push the concept.

…Rich as it is, Gazprom faces big challenges in the Medvedev era.

Rising prices for steel, equipment and labor have caught the company at the outset of its largest capital program in two decades. Like other Russian companies, it invested little money maintaining or upgrading equipment in the 1990s. But the days of coasting on Soviet-era infrastructure are over, as output declines from fields first tapped in the 1970s.

To meet export commitments in Europe, as well as growing demand at home, Gazprom will have to spend at least $75 billion to bring its two largest fields in the Arctic into production within the next decade, according to Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Yet exploring and extracting gas in a region where temperatures dip to 50 degrees below zero is technologically challenging, as well as expensive. Gazprom must build pipelines, gas processing plants, liquefied natural gas factories and a full panoply of supporting infrastructure like roads, railroads and ports. And to accomplish those feats, it moves thousands of tons of steel and heavy equipment to the middle of a vast, frozen swamp.

“The complexity and the size of it is what creates a huge challenge for Russia and for Gazprom,” said Vitaly V. Yermakov, director of research for the Russian and Caspian region at Cambridge Energy Research Associates….”