Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, has, for the first time, listed its bonds in Dublin instead of Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is struggling to cope with the additional workload created by the European Union's new prospectus directive.

Gazprom, Russia's biggest borrower, late on Friday raised nearly $1.9 billion (€1.58 billion) by means of two separate bond issues, lead-managed by Deutsche Bank and MCC of Italy.

People close to the transactions said the company had opted for Dublin because of a backlog of listings on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, prompted by the July 1st adoption of the prospectus directive. It calls for more stringent disclosure from issuers, such as accounts prepared on the basis of international financial reporting standards.

European corporate bond issuance rose to a two-year high in June, as companies rushed to the market before implementation of the new directive. The Luxembourg Stock Exchange said it registered 1,241 new securities last month, up from 775 in June 2004. Most of them were bonds.

However, an official at the exchange said that many companies had also waited until after July 1st to start new borrowing programmes in order to avoid having to review documentation after the rules had taken effect.

An official at the exchange said: "There is a bottleneck in Luxembourg - we're getting a lot of listings prospectuses right now [ but] a bottleneck [ shows] there are many securities waiting to be listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange."

The London Stock Exchange said it had experienced no delays. The Dublin exchange was unavailable for comment.

Gazprom is an enormous energy company that pumps a quarter of the world's gas supplies. In February it reported a 9 per cent increase in net profit for the first nine months of 2004, with profits rising to to 137.9 billion roubles (€3.99 billion) for the period to end-September on sales that gained 14 per cent to 683.3 billion roubles, compared with the same period in 2003.