Gazprom, Russia’s state energy corporation, plans to cut 1,600 positions at its St. Petersburg headquarters — reducing its central office staff by nearly half. The restructuring plan came to light through a leaked internal letter that company officials have since verified as authentic.
Deputy Board Chairman Elena Ilyukhina wrote in a December letter that excessive bureaucracy and duplicated roles necessitated the cuts. Russian news site 47news first published the document, which detailed plans to reduce the central office from 4,100 to 2,500 employees.
“The document is relevant. We do not plan to comment,” Gazprom’s communications chief Sergey Kupriyanov told Forbes Russia when asked about the leak.
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Ilyukhina’s letter highlighted the contrast between Gazprom’s management structure and that of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear firm, which operates with just 1,246 managers overseeing 350,000 employees. Gazprom currently employs nearly half a million people as of December 2023.
The staffing cuts follow a challenging year for Gazprom, which reported a 629 billion ruble ($6.9 billion) loss in 2023 after Western sanctions severed its access to European markets. This stands in stark contrast to its 1.23 trillion ruble profit in 2022, before the full impact of Russia’s Ukraine invasion took hold.
The US and UK announced new sanctions against Russia’s energy sector, including Gazprom’s oil subsidiary, Gazprom Neft, last Friday. Gazprom has not said whether Chairman Alexey Miller has approved the staff reduction plans.
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