Putin against dividing Russian gas giant Gazprom

It would be wrong to divide Russian gas giant Gazprom into different sections, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. To separate gas extraction, transportation and distribution under the European Union's Third Energy Package demand would be "economically useless," Putin told participants of an annual international investment forum here. Gazprom is a vertically integrated joint stock corporation dealing with production, transportation and selling of natural and liquidized gas as well as electricity and heat power distribution. The transportation part would die if detached from Gazprom as proposed by some experts, since it could only survive for the expenses of gas extraction and sales within the group, Putin said. "It is necessary to change the company's economy and provide its access to the pipelines," Putin insisted. Meanwhile, Putin vowed to punish any corrupt officials found within Gazprom. "We often hear complaints about how Gazprom does its business, that there are some manifestations of corruption. Perhaps, there are, but it's up to police to catch and jail. I think that will be correct," Putin said. On Tuesday, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) submitted a resolution which calls Moscow to stop political and economical pressure on European countries by using Gazprom as a tool in the "gas price war". As the fifth largest energy firm in Russia, Gazprom sells productions to some 30 countries and controls 18 percent of global and 70 percent of Russian gas resources.