U.S. Cables Say Gazprom Plagued By Corruption, Poor Management

A Gazprom exhibition in Turkmenistan (file photo)

Purported U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks describe Russian energy monopoly Gazprom as "inefficient, politically driven, and corrupt."

The German magazine "Spiegel" published the leaked cables from U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John Beyrle saying that Gazprom's Soviet-style thinking undermined its ambitions to become a competitive global firm.

State-controlled Gazprom is the world's biggest natural gas company and controls around one-quarter of the world's reserves.

The revelations are part of the quarter-million U.S. diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks began releasing in November.

compiled from agency reports