4 CHANGES: VLADIMIR PUTIN, THE THIRD APPOINTMENT Romania, a priority for the development of Gazprom

The regional expansion of the business is a strategic point for NIS, a subsidiary of "Gazprom Neft". Romania is one of the countries which represent a priority, which presents a promising avenue for development, according to the Communication Department of Gazprom.

"We remain interested in investing in this country and we are studying the possible means of cooperation", a response of the Communication Department of Gazprom sent to us upon our inquiry states.

Gazprom officials said that the Russian firm is discussing with the Romanian authorities about UGS projects - underground natural gas storage areas.

In autumn last year, the Romanian and Russian authorities have reviewed the investment opportunities which our country offers. In this regard, the management of "Gazprom" has expressed its interest in making investments in the underground storage of natural gas in Romania. On the same occasion, the outlook for continuing the agreements concerning the gas transit through Romania to the market of South-Eastern Europe. The mutual interest in the beginning of a mutually beneficial cooperation between "Gazprom" and Romanian companies "Romgaz" and "Transgaz" on third party markets in the areas of exploration, exploitation and transport of natural gas was also reaffirmed.

In October 2011, "Gazprom" CEO Aleksei Miller announced the company's willingness to give a positive answer to the requests of the Romanian party to establish direct contractual relations for selling natural gas to Romania.

In a meeting with the minister of the Economy at the time, Ion Ariton, Aleksei Miller expressed the interest of "Gazprom" for investments in the electrical plants of Romania.

Even though some officials claim that 2012 (when some of the agreements of the intermediaries will expire) is decisive in the Romanian-Russian negotiations on the direct imports of natural gas, the quoted sources are saying that in fact, we can begin at any time to import natural gas directly of the authorities were to actually get serious about beginning the negotiations. What is at stake is not just the reduction of the price of imported natural gas, but also attracting the hundreds of millions of Euros which "Gazprom" has prepared for this area of Europe.

Romania currently imports natural gas from "Gazprom", through intermediaries, namely WIEE - a joint venture between "Gazprom" - "Wintershall", a company registered in Switzerland, and IMEX - a "Gazprom" - "Conef" joint-venture, a company registered in Cyprus. "Wintershall" is 100% owned by German consortium BASF, and "Conef" is a Romanian company, owned by Russian magnate Vitaliy Machitski, who is the owner of "Alro" Slatina.

The people of Gazprom have no issue with selling us natural gas directly at a much lower price. For that to happen Romania needs to negotiate very strictly and without any hesitation with Gazprom, unlike it did so far and to attract the important financial resources of the Russian giant into the Romanian oil and electricity generation industries".

• "Gazprom Neft" wants to invest several hundreds of millions of Euros until 2015

Also in autumn last year, during a meeting with then-prime-minister Emil Boc, a delegation of NIS, a subsidiary of "Gazprom Neft", led by Kirill Kravchenko, general manager for Serbia and deputy general manager for the foreign assets of "Gazprom Neft", presented the PM the intentions of the company to expand into Romania. The plans include investments in the oil sector of several hundred millions by 2015 and the creation of approximately 500 jobs.

• 140 NIS gas stations by 2020

NIS wants to set up companies in Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina to tap attractive investment opportunities (gas stations and locations). The targets of NIS for 2011-2012 are to begin the regional research, the framework research works and the incorporation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania and Montenegro, as well as the registration of the companies and the opening of regional offices. This also includes the hiring of NIS as the oil services works in the target countries.

Thus, by 2020, NIS wants to own 140 gas stations with an average turnover of 2.55 thousand tons per year/per gas station (about 7 tons a day). In 2012, the company plans to create (through acquisitions and/or new constructions) 54 new gas stations.

Russian officials have asked that Romania contribute to the full opening of the NIS through the long term taxation rates favorable for the investments which concern increased exploitation and storage, the support in setting up the common investments with the top ranking domestic companies in terms of exploitation, as well as favorable terms for the rebuilding of the Panciova-Timişoara pipeline. Other requirements of the NIS have been the support of the state through the development of the road infrastructure and through help in obtaining the research and exploitation licenses needed for the selling of oil derived products and in obtaining the licenses for the building of gas stations and the capacity of gas storage tanks, as well as the participation in major projects.

• Vladimir Putin, appointed as president of Russia for the third time

Russian leader Vladimir Putin yesterday returned to Kremlin, for a third presidential term, after being contested in an unprecedented manner since his appointment in 1999, and encountering the adversity of the opposition which fears an increased authoritarianism.

Putin made the following statement yesterday, with his hand on the Constitution: "I swear that in carrying out my attributions as president of the Russian Federation I will uphold and defend the human and citizens' rights and freedoms, to uphold and defend the Constitution of the Russian Federation, to defend the sovereignty and independence, the security and integrity of the state, to faithfully serve the people".

The ceremony for the appointment of the elected Russian president, Vladimir Putin, began yesterday in the Big Palace of Kremlin in Moscow, at 11:30 local time (10:30 Romanian time), in the presence of over 2,000 foreign and Russian guests.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has promised Russian citizens a new stage in the development of the country, and said during the ceremony of his appointment, that his six-year term will influence the country's destiny "for decades". "Today we are entering a new stage of national development. We need to solve tasks of a new amplitude", he said, and he went on to say: "The coming years will be crucial for Russia's destiny, for the coming decades and we need to understand that the life of the coming generations, the historic outlook of our state and of our nation depend on us", the Russian leader said, before a crowd of 3,000 guests, assembled in the Great Palace of Kremlin. Putin, who is heavily criticized by the opposition for his authoritarianism, has also promised he would "consolidate democracy" in Russia.

Vladimir Putin was elected as president with 64% of the votes in March. Over the last four years, he has served as PM of the Russian Federation.

On Sunday, over 400 people were arrested when the police scattered a major meeting organized by the opposition. The clashes resulted in dozens of wounded. The automobile traffic in the center of the city was halted during the ceremony and a significant security team was mobilized in Moscow.

Vladimir Putin was elected with almost 64% of the votes in March, for a six year term. The opposition denounced many cases of electoral fraud and staged protests to contest his win.

Vladimir Putin left the Russian presidency in 2008 to become prime minister, because he could not serve as president for three terms in a row.

Former president Dmitri Medvedev is set to become prime minister, according to an agreement which they have announced in September.

• Putin, an authoritarian leader

After a fulminating rise, Vladimir Putin made his mark as an authoritarian leader who transformed Russia over the course of the last 12 years. The new president will lead the country at least until 2018.

He provided assurance that he only has one ambition, namely "the stable development" of a country which he has already succeeded in leading away from the state it was in in the "90s and restore its status of major power. "I never thought I would become the head of state", he said in February. "But I would like if, once my work is done, contemporary Russia would be a solid construction", he was saying.

For his supporters, the fact that "the vertical of power" in service of the "national leader" is the guarantee to a bright future. They praise his intransigence, even when that leads to the death of tens of innocent people, like it happened in the hostage crisis of the Dubrovka theater of Moscow (2002).

Putin has been promoting this tough image in front of the cameras as well. While he never talks about his private life, including about his two daughters, Putin allows himself to be filmed riding shirtless in the steppe, putting out fires aboard a plane or riding in a bobsleigh.

Faced with an unprecedented movement against him, starting with December 2011, since the controversial legislative elections, Vladimir Putin has denied his critics, labeling his opponents as "monkeys", spies paid by the Americans or inept.

Vladimir Putin entered politics as a reformer, in 1991, becoming a close collaborator of the mayor of Sankt Petersburg, after a career as a KGB officer, which almost nothing is known about, except for the fact that he activated in the former German Democrat Republic (1985-1990).

Since the summer of 1998, Putin was appointed as the leader of the FSB, (the successor of the KGB), and one year later he became prime minister. In that position, he proved to be an unyielding leader. In October, after a flurry of terrorist attacks, he started off the second Chechnya war, a bloody conflict which laid the foundation for his popularity, but also for his authoritarian image.

In December, Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president at the time, resigned and left Putin in Kremlin.

Relying on the "structures of power" (the FSB, the police, the army) and on his close friends of Sankt Petersburg (formerly Leningrad, where he was born on October 7th, 1952), he got rid of several "oligarchs", the very rich businesspeople who were extremely influential during the term of Boris Yeltsin. Some of them are in exile, and the chairman of the Yukos oil group, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who went against Putin, has been in jail since 2003. TV stations have come under the control of the regime, and the state has assumed a predominant position in the economy. The communist and populist opposition was allowed to exist, because it is not going against the fundamentals of the system.