RUSSIA'S OAO Gazprom is poised to unseat General Electric Co as the world's fourth-largest company by market value after energy prices rose to records and GE's first earnings decline in five years erased US$50 billion from its stock.

Gazprom, the world's biggest natural gas producer, increased 21 percent on Moscow's Micex Exchange to US$318.8 billion in the past year as the fuel rallied 43 percent. GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, dropped 11 percent to US$322.7 billion on the New York Stock Exchange. The world's largest maker of locomotives and jet engines retreated the most in 20 years on April 11 as earnings fell on credit losses in its financial services units, which accounted for more than half of GE's profit in 2007.

"There has been a growing question mark around GE with so much leverage to finance," said Bruce McCain, the head of investment strategy at Key Private Bank, which manages US$40 billion.

"You were paying an industrial multiple for a company that was 50 percent financial. The credit crisis underscores that a financial company is more risky."

Gazprom, established in Moscow 15 years ago from the Soviet Gas Industry Ministry, and GE, which Thomas Edison helped create in 1892, are converging as the US economy slows and Russia grows at its highest annual rate this decade.