Mr Putin was shown the section for receiving customs declarations on gas, crude, oil products and electricity, as well as a working version of the situation centre.

Federal Customs Service chief Andrei Belyaninov gave Mr Putin the general operating figures of the service. He said that in 2009 Central Energy Customs contributed more than 1.711 trillion roubles to the federal budget, or over half of all revenue from customs.

Central Energy Customs was created by re-organising energy customs. It specialises in customs clearance and customs control of such bulk products as crude, gas condensate, natural gas, electric power, peat and oil shales.