MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Rosneft and Gazprom to prepare a proposal for the former to export natural gas from Russia to Europe via pipelines, Interfax news agency reported. The proposal, if approved, would end Gazprom’s monopoly on gas exports since 2006. The decision will be taken in cooperation with the government and the two energy companies. According to Interfax, the joint proposal on a pilot project for Rosneft to export of up to 10 billion cubic meters of Russian piped gas to the European market should be submitted to Putin by March 1. Allowing Rosneft to export gas from Russia will solve the problem with the full load of the Nord Stream 2 and OPAL pipelines, which Gazprom cannot fully use due to the norms of the Third Energy Package of the EU, Interfax said citing the company. In August, earlier this year, Russia’s Kommersant reported that Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin asked Putin to allow the company to export 10 bcm of natural gas a year through an agency agreement with Gazprom. “The company does not have significant free volumes of gas right now and is planning to significantly increase production only in 2022,” Kommersant said in an article published on Aug. 27 without identifying the source. In 2020, Rosneft produced 62.8 bcm of natural gas, 6 percent less than in 2019, according to the company’s annual report. In November 2021, the company’s output of natural gas came in at 4 bcm, down 5.1 percent from October and up 10.8 percent from the same month a year ago, analysts at Renaissance Capital wrote in a research note published on Dec. 6.