Putin names reactor salesman as energy minister

By Simon Shuster

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday named as his new energy minister Sergei Shmatko, the head of the state-run nuclear firm Atomstroiexport, which is building Iran's first nuclear power plant.

The surprise nomination will put Shmatko, a nuclear reactor salesman with a military education and no experience in oil or gas, at the helm of Russia's energy industry, the world's largest natural gas producer and second largest oil exporter.

Shmatko, 42, has been in the spotlight in recent years over his company's construction of a nuclear power plant at Bushehr, on the Gulf coast in southwestern Iran.

Under a $1 billion construction contract, Russia has already made deliveries of nuclear fuel to the plant, despite U.S. and European concerns over Iran's uranium enrichment program, which some fear could be used to produce a nuclear bomb.

Aside from entrusting him to implement oil and gas policy, the post of energy minister will also make Shmatko one of the key regulators of the electricity sector, which is in the process of implementing sweeping free-market reforms.

Shmatko has headed Atomstroiexport since 2005, and since January of this year he has also served as deputy director of AtomEnergoProm, the state giant that includes all of Russia's civilian nuclear assets.

It was not immediately clear whether Shmatko would retain these positions after taking on his new role.

He took up his post at the reactor construction firm just after graduating in 2004 from a top military academy, where he specialized in "the defence and security of the Russian Federation," according to his official biography.