Berlin - Gazprom is reconsidering its investment plans in Germany because of state regulation in the energy sector, the head of the Russian energy giant's German operation was quoted Sunday as saying.
"We have an extremely limited interest at the moment in investing in Germany," the managing director of Gazprom Germania, Hans- Joachim Gornig, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
"The minister for the environment (Sigmar Gabriel) is even talking about taking away the energy providers' networks," Gornig said in an interview.
"In terms of Marxism, that's tantamount to expropriation," and would make any investor think twice, he said in the interview, details of which were released ahead of publication on Monday.
A year ago, Gazprom announced plans for major investment in Germany, including the purchase of city utilities in order to get closer to the consumer.
Gornig said his company was inundated with offers from city power companies to do business with them. As long as it was unclear what the government wanted, the issue was on ice as far as Gazprom was concerned, he added.