OAO Gazprom (Public Joint Stock Company Gazprom) is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company. A separate Soviet gas industry was created in 1943. Large natural gas reserves discovered in Siberia and the Ural and Volga regions in the 1970s and 1980s enabled the Soviet Union to become a major gas producer. Gas exploration, development, and distribution were centralized in a state ministry.

In July 1989 President, Mikhail Gorbachev merged the ministries for oil and gas as part of his economic reforms, into a single industry, the Ministry of the Oil and Gas Industry of the USSR. A separate Soviet gas industry was again created in the early 1990s, before the break up of the USSR. In September 1990, the Gazprom board discussed transforming Gazprom into a joint-stock company. In 1991-92 talks were held between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus over creating a tripartite joint-stock company with all three states holding shares.

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