St Petersburg this month gets a badly needed new power station. Russia's second-largest city is booming and is desperate for more generating capacity. But the $500m plant may not work. There is no spare gas to fire it.

Despite having the world's largest gas reserves and portraying itself as an energy superpower, domestically Russia faces a shortage of gas. Gazprom, the dominant gas supplier that frequently doubles as a Kremlin foreign policy arm, is not producing enough for an economy growing at more than 6 per cent a year.