Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian gas company, could make its second small acquisition in the UK with the purchase of Natural Gas Shipping Services, based in Wilmslow in Cheshire. NGSS is the sister company of Pennine Natural Gas, a company whose supply business was acquired last year by Gazprom Marketing and Trading, a Gazprom unit based in Kingston, south-west London. GMT has an option to buy NGSS, although it has not yet decided whether to exercise it. Gazprom’s presence in the UK is still small: Pennine Gas and NGSS together would account for less than 1 per cent of the market. But the Russian group has ambitions to grow, and has targeted a market share of 10 per cent. Yesterday Gazprom posted a doubling in annual profits to Rbs636bn (£12.3bn) last year, on revenues of Rbs2,200bn, up from Rbs1,380bn in 2005. Alexander Medvedev, general director of Gazprom’s international marketing division, caused a furore earlier this month when he said the company would make an acquisition in Britain “in the nearest future”. Shares in Centrica, which owns British Gas, rose more than 5 per cent, as traders speculated that the long-rumoured bid from Gazprom could now be imminent. However, Gazprom then denied that it had any plans to bid for either Centrica or Scottish and Southern Energy, the other leading British electricity and gas supplier that is not part of a big European group. By making such a statement, Gazprom precluded itself from making a bid for six months, unless another company bids. Analysts have suggested that if Gazprom does bid for Centrica, it is more likely to do so next year, after the Russian elections, once the uncertainty over the political outlook in the country has been resolved.

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