"The Anti-Trust Service experts suppose that the suspected companies create obstacles to accessing the gas supply market and also act coordinately, which may result in preventing, restricting and removing competition and in infringing on the interests of other economic entities," the press release of the Federal Anti-Trust Service says.
It is expected that by September 13 the sides will submit all the required materials to the Commission of the Federal Anti-Trust Service, and on September 20 the case will be considered essentially.
A spokesman for the Gazprom press service told RIA Novosti that "the restrictions with regard to the reception of gas from the companies (Rospan, Nortgaz and Novatek) was necessitated by the insufficient take-off of their gas by the end users from the Unified Gas Supply System. This leads to the overload of the gas transporting system and the lowering of its capacity, he said.
The Gazprom press service said that such a situation creates a threat of violating the agreements on gas deliveries to the consumers both by independent gas producers and by Gazprom which, unlike independent suppliers, has social commitments concerning gas deliveries inside Russia.
"To prevent such situations, the independent producers should build their relations with gas purchasers so that the amount of gas purchases should precisely correspond to the amount of its pumping into the pipe," the Gazprom press service spokesman said.
