What a difference a year makes. Indeed, Russian oil giant Gazprom has seen its fortunes free fall in 2008. The company, which was once on the verge of becoming the largest company in the world, is now looking for the Russian government to step in and offer up some bailout money to keep the company afloat.

The Russian natural gas monopoly has seen its market cap shrink by a remarkable 76% since the start of 2008, dropping it to 35th place in overall market cap. Now that the company has hit such hard times, it is looking towards Moscow for a little help, asking for a reported $5.5 billion.

The recent sharp drop in oil prices is largely responsible for the company's hard times, but that is not the whole story. Gazprom, while still enjoying high oil prices, displayed poor judgment in how it used its new found power and money. Instead of taking the profits from the past five years of record prices for natural gas and investing them in new exploration and drilling, they were used by, at the time Russian President, Vladimir Putin to regain public control over the oil fields, and other forms of private industry.