Valery Nazarov, former head of the Federal Property Management Agency, will return to lead an ambitious privatization program, including an additional sale of Rosneft shares, a source in the agency said.

Nazarov, who led the property agency from March 2004 to May 2008, will replace its current chief, Yury Petrov, the source said.

A source who attended First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov’s recent meeting on state property said he had heard of Nazarov’s coming reappointment and that Petrov was being replaced because he did not fit in with the government’s plan for an aggressive privatization.

Nazarov moved to St. Petersburg in 1994 from Estonia. From 1995 through 1999, he was director of the city’s real estate registry, which reported to the property committee. In October 1999, he became the head of the property committee and in June 2000 also became a St. Petersburg deputy governor.

According to the Labirint database, Nazarov had close ties to now-President Dmitry Medvedev, and his job also brought him into contact with Vladimir Putin, now prime minister. Nazarov is friends with Shuvalov and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, the Federal Property Management Agency source said.

In October 2003, Valentina Matviyenko became governor of St. Petersburg and Nazarov was pushed from his post, but three months later he was named a Kremlin deputy chief of staff, a post he held until taking over as the head the property agency.

Nazarov had stepped down because of health problems, the source in the property agency said. He was replaced by Petrov, who had led the now-defunct Russian Federal Property Fund.

Petrov’s deputies are actually running the agency for him, another source in the Federal Property Management Agency said, adding that Petrov’s replacement has been actively discussed within the body since the start of the year.

The Federal Property Management Agency’s press service declined comment. A spokesman for Shuvalov’s office said he had no information regarding the property service.

The question was not on the agenda for Putin’s meeting Tuesday on privatization plans for 2010, government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

A source in the property agency said the body had until Wednesday to estimate the possible earnings from sales of stakes in Rosselkhozbank, Rosagroleasing, Rosneft, Sheremetyevo Airport and the State ATM Corporation, a federal unitary enterprise that oversees the safety of civil aviation.

Sheremetyevo is already in the privatization plans for next year, said a source close to the airport’s board of directors and an official at Sheremetyevo.

Shuvalov said last weekend on Vesti-24 television that a Rosneft stake would not be sold in 2010. It was not immediately clear whether the three other organizations were included in the privatizations for next year.