Gazprom's Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District of Russia

Today's edition of the NYTimes has a good overview of Gazprom, its relationship with the Kremlin, and the challenges the company faces in meeting growing demand for natural gas at both home and abroad. The accompanying photo gallery, "A Quest for Energy in Darkest Siberia", is also worth checking out.

With energy prices continuing to hit record highs, Gazprom is more influential than ever, both at home and abroad. Gazprom says that before 2014 it will surpass Exxon Mobil as the world’s largest publicly traded company — a goal that Mr. Medvedev himself endorsed before he became president.

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Rich as it is, Gazprom faces big challenges in the Medvedev era.

Rising prices for steel, equipment and labor have caught the company at the outset of its largest capital program in two decades. Like other Russian companies, it invested little money maintaining or upgrading equipment in the 1990s. But the days of coasting on Soviet-era infrastructure are over, as output declines from fields first tapped in the 1970s.

To meet export commitments in Europe, as well as growing demand at home, Gazprom will have to spend at least $75 billion to bring its two largest fields in the Arctic into production within the next decade, according to Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Yet exploring and extracting gas in a region where temperatures dip to 50 degrees below zero is technologically challenging, as well as expensive. Gazprom must build pipelines, gas processing plants, liquefied natural gas factories and a full panoply of supporting infrastructure like roads, railroads and ports. And to accomplish those feats, it moves thousands of tons of steel and heavy equipment to the middle of a vast, frozen swamp.

“The complexity and the size of it is what creates a huge challenge for Russia and for Gazprom,” said Vitaly V. Yermakov, director of research for the Russian and Caspian region at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.