Gazprom Falls After Regulator Levies Fine Over Pipeline Access

By William Mauldin and Lucian Kim

Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- OAO Gazprom, owner of Russia's natural-gas pipelines, fell in Moscow after antitrust authorities said the company will be fined for limiting access to its transportation network.

State-run Gazprom had ``no economic or technical basis'' for denying pipeline access to ZAO Trans Nafta in the Tatarstan region, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said on its Web site yesterday. The fine can be as much as 15 percent of Gazprom's annual revenue in ``the corresponding market,'' the service said. Unicredit SpA said the fine may be as much as $250 million.

Gazprom declined as much as 6.83 rubles, or 3 percent, to 218.99 rubles on the Micex Stock Exchange, making it the worst performer in the MSCI Russia Energy Index today.

``Although it is not certain that Gazprom will actually end up paying the fine, the case again underlines the government's determination to grant broader access and rights to independent gas industry players,'' Unicredit analysts Artem Konchin and Pavel Sorokin said in a note to investors. OAO Rosneft, the country's biggest oil producer, ``may become the clear winner.''

To contact the reporter on this story: William Mauldin in Moscow at wmauldin1@bloomberg.net.