Gazprom denies rumour that it seeks Repsol stake

Moscow: Russia's gas export monopoly Gaz-prom denied on Friday that it wanted to buy a 20 per cent stake in Spanish oil major Repsol as the stake would have been too small.

Russian news agencies last week quoted deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov as telling a Russian-Spanish intergovernmental commission in Madrid that Gazprom was considering buying the stake.

"Gazprom never had and does not have any intention to buy 20 per cent of shares in Repsol. All the talks connected to that arose because somebody wants to sell this stake, not because somebody wants to buy it," said Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kup-riyanov.

"A 20 per cent stake is too little for us," he added.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero dismissed the matter in a radio interview on Friday.

"There's nothing to it and there never was," he said.