Russia to build 'nuclear Gazprom' for world market

MOSCOW, June 28 (Reuters) Russia will merge its civilian nuclear companies into one state company -- along the lines of gas giant Gazprom -- to help it compete on the world nuclear market, the country's nuclear chief said today.

President Vladimir Putin this month approved a revamp of the nuclear industry which nuclear officials say is aimed at boosting nuclear energy production and increasing the global clout of Russia's major nuclear companies.

Under the plan, a single state company called Atomprom will be created on the base of the many smaller, sometimes overlapping, state-controlled companies in the sector.

''It is not by chance that the preliminary name of this single Russian company evokes the name Gazprom,'' Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's atomic energy agency Rosatom, said in a speech according to a Rosatom statement.

State-controlled gas giant Gazprom the world's biggest natural gas company by reserves, has made major acquisitions inside Russia, helping the Kremlin boost control over the energy sector.

Gazprom also plans further expansion abroad, aiming to boost its share of the European market, for example, to about 30 percent from about 25 percent by buying into gas storage projects, gas marketing and power firms.

ATOMIC ''RENAISSANCE'' ''There is a renaissance of atomic energy in the world and our task is to break into it,'' Kiriyenko said.

Putin has put energy security at the heart of the agenda for a summit of the Group of Eight in St Petersburg next month.

Kremlin officials see energy -- particularly oil, gas and nuclear -- as a new arrow in Russia's geopolitical quiver.

Russia's Atomprom would compete on the world market not with national, but with transnational companies such as Germany's Siemens and Japan's Toshiba Corp. RIA quoted Kiriyenko as saying.

''We need to create a single structure, which would be comparable with them and which could surpass them,'' he said.

A source in the nuclear industry with knowledge of the plan told Reuters yesterday Atomprom would unite all nuclear power generation, uranium production and enrichment as well as the building and export of nuclear products.

If the plan is implemented, Atomprom would include nuclear power company Rosenergoatom -- which controls Russia's nuclear power stations -- and the civilian units of Rosatom.

Rosatom's main units are Tekhsnabexport (Tenex), the state owned uranium trader, TVEL, the state owned-nuclear fuel producer and trader, and Atomstroiexport, the state controlled builder of nuclear reactors abroad.

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