Alexei Miller Reappointed as Gazprom CEO for Another Five Years

Overview of Alexei Miller's Tenure at Gazprom

MOSCOW, Feb 13 - Alexei Miller, CEO of Russian gas giant Gazprom, will stay in post for another five years after the board of directors extended his contract, the company said Friday.

Background and Early Career

Here are some facts about him:

Impact on Gazprom's Market Position

* Miller, 64, was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. He worked at the St. Petersburg mayor's office from 1991-1996 in the department for international relations, which was headed at the time by Vladimir Putin.

Controversies and Criticism

* In 2001, he took over Gazprom, one of the world's biggest natural gas companies by output and reserves, a year after Putin was elected president.

* Miller helped the state to regain control over Gazprom, ensuring it had a monopoly over exports of natural gas via pipelines.

* Kremlin critics have said that Moscow has often used Gazprom as its "energy weapon", especially in dealing with neighbouring Ukraine, once an important route for Russian gas exports to Europe. Russia denies that.

* In 2007, Gazprom was the world's third-largest company with a market capitalisation of more than $330 billion. A year later, Miller said that Gazprom's market capitalisation, or the value of its shares, would reach $1 trillion in the next seven to eight years.

* But in November 2023, Gazprom's value dropped to $43 billion, less than that of its oil arm, Gazprom Neft, when Gazprom saw its gas exports plummet to post-Soviet lows after Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

* Gazprom's pipeline gas exports to Europe last year amounted to around only 18 billion cubic metres, down from 175-180 billion cubic metres per year in 2018 and 2019.

(Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva and Vladimir Soldatkin. Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Potter)