THE rift between Moscow and Washington widened yesterday when the Kremlin threatened to block US participation in a giant liquefied natural gas project if America continued to oppose Russia’s admission to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

A Kremlin spokesman confirmed that an aide to President Putin had warned Washington last month that obstacles to Russia’s WTO membership could jeopardise America’s access to the Shtokman project in the Barents Sea, the world’s biggest undeveloped gas resource.

The move came after Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, said yesterday that a decision on bringing foreign partners into the consortium to develop Shtokman would be delayed further, until “the summer”.

An announcement from Gazprom of its choice of two or three companies to take minority stakes, expected before Easter, had been put off to mid-May for further studies and commercial horse-trading. The latest delay appears to be political in nature and threatens to cast a pall over energy talks at the G8 summit in July, to be hosted by the Kremlin.

Washington’s criticism of Russia’s nationalist energy policy has angered President Putin. Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, accused Russia this month of using its oil and gas reserves as weapons of “intimidation or blackmail”.

According to the Kremlin, Igor Shuvalov, an aide to President Putin, had warned Washington during a visit there last month: “If the United States puts new demands to Russia in WTO negotiations that haven’t been put before other countries, then it can’t be excluded that new demands will be put before American companies for participating in the Shtokman project.”

Shtokman has gas reserves of 110 trillion cubic feet and the fuel is earmarked to satisfy a long-standing Gazprom ambition to export gas to America.

Two American companies, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, are competing with three Europeans, Statoil and Norsk Hydro of Norway and France’s Total, for the project, which could cost $20 billion (£10.6 billion).

Gazprom needs Western help to build Shtokman and a US partner could facilitate marketing of the fuel in the US. A Gazprom spokesman insisted the choice was not related to the WTO issue. Membership is a priority for President Putin who recently denounced American attempts to link Russian accession to the WTO with “issues that have nothing to do with the economy”. His complaint relates to congressional lobbyists who are urging the US President to bring human rights issues into the debate.

The US and Colombia are the only nations with which Russia still needs to strike a deal to secure WTO membership. America is also demanding that Russia open up its banking market and improve protection for intellectual property.

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