Rosneft's pipedream

Not content with its oil eminence, the state-controlled oil giant has Gazprom in its sights

It has overtaken Novatek to become Russia's second-biggest natural gas producer. Now Rosneft has revealed its bigger ambition: beating Gazprom. Details are hazy, but the goal offers a measure of the state-controlled firm's new confidence. Igor Sechin, Rosneft's chief executive, boasted of the plan in a meeting at the Kremlin with President Vladimir Putin on 23 January. Rosneft claimed the second spot in gas output for the first time last year after recording a 7% jump in output to 67bn cubic meters. Novatek extracted 66.2bn cm last year, according to preliminary data. By 2020, Rosneft is forecasting gas production of 100bn cm per year, which implies a compound annual growth rate of 10.5%. Th