Fortune: EU probe isn’t stopping Gazprom’s European expansion plan

Russia’s national gas champion OAO Gazprom took its biggest bite into the U.K. market to date Tuesday, signing a deal with the country’s biggest utility that will give it access to some 15 million household and business customers.

The state-controlled giant, which last month became the subject of an official European Union antitrust probe, agreed to extend a 2012 agreement with Centrica (which sells through the British Gas brand), raising annual supplies from just over 70 billion cubic feet a year to 146 bcf.

The deal, which runs through 2021, means that Gazprom will be the source of over 5% of annual U.K. gas demand, even before its trading arrangements with other U.K. utilities are taken into account. Supplies will be managed from Gazprom’s global trading portfolio, rather than sourced to specific fields and pipelines in Russia, however,

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