The natural gas industry is probably the least marketised sector in the Russian economy. Despite – or perhaps because of – its enormous significance, it has proved extraordinarily successful in preserving the transitional institutional structures created in 1992 and in resisting attempts to increase the role of market forces in its operation. While a largely unreformed gas industry demonstrated considerable resilience during the early years of the post-communist transition, it is increasingly clear that the failure to allow greater play to market forces in the sector represents a threat to its long-term development and, by extension, to Russia’s long-term growth prospects (see Chapter 1). This chapter will examine the state of the natural gas industry and the prospects for its development before ...