On 15 June, Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing the President’s Commission for the Strategic Development of the Fuel & Energy Complex and Environmental Safety. Putin himself has become chairman of the committee, and the responsible secretary is his closest aide Igor Sechin, the president of Rosneft, and until recently the deputy prime minister for energy. The commission consists of representatives from major oil, gas and electricity companies, as well as key ministers, the heads of ministerial institutions and of the national energy market’s regulatory authorities. The Commission has a very wide remit; its exclusive competence covers matters particularly related to how the oil and gas sector functions – from price controls on the internal market, fiscal policy, through granting concessions for research into and development of resources, up to deciding the strategy for developing the sector as a whole (including programmes to develop the resources of individual regions, and assigning state budget funds to these projects). The new committee is being coordinated by Anton Ustinov, a close associate of Igor Sechin, who has also became an adviser to President Putin.  MORE