Russia’s Gazprom is considering cutting hundreds of administrative jobs, a company spokesman confirmed to AFP on Monday, as the gas producer reels amid the loss of key exports to Europe.
Ukraine on January 1 ended decades of Russian gas transit agreements — deals that had brought billions of dollars to Kyiv and Moscow — in a bid to cut off revenues for Russia amid the three-year conflict.
A Gazprom spokesperson confirmed to AFP on Monday that a letter circulating in Russian media in which a senior figure proposed cutting around 40 percent of jobs at the firm’s Saint Petersburg headquarters was real.
In the letter, dated 23 December 2024 and sent to Gazprom chief Alexei Miller, deputy chairperson Yelena Ilyukhina said the company should reduce the number of employees at its headquarters from “more than 4,100” to “2,500 staff.”
“The challenges facing the Gazprom group require a reduction in the time required for preparing and taking decisions,” Ilyukhina said in the letter, criticising “excessive bureaucratic processes” and laying out the proposed cuts.
The proposed lay-offs would not affect those employed at production facilities.
Gazprom, once a major source of revenue for the Russian government, posted a net loss of almost $7 billion in 2023 — its first loss in more than two decades.
The company has a monopoly on Russian pipeline gas exports and is trying to redirect its supplies to new markets.
Russia supplied almost 45 percent of the EU’s total gas imports in 2021 — a share that plunged to under 15 percent in 2023, according to EU statistics.
Brussels wants the bloc to completely cut its use of Russian fossil fuels by 2027.
Gazprom has boosted sales to China in recent years, but Beijing has held off from approving a new long-term supply contract or deal to build a major new pipeline.
The long-discussed project, called the Power of Siberia 2, would allow Gazprom to redirect gas to China from fields that used to supply Europe.