Kremlin heavyweight Igor Sechin was put back in charge of Rosneft on Tuesday, a year after he had the reins of the oil giant yanked from his hands under orders from then-President Dmitry Medvedev. Kremlin heavyweight Igor Sechin was put back in charge of Rosneft on Tuesday, a little over a year after he had...

... partners, the company's president Vagit Alekperov said Friday. But Alekperov, speaking in the Spanish city of Barcelona, where LUKoil was holding a board meeting and opening an oil product terminal this week, said LUKoil was ready to allow state company Rosneft to join its other overseas projects. Last month, Iraq approved the sale by Norway's Statoil of its minority stake in the giant oil field to LUKoil, making the Russian firm the sole foreign partner in one of Iraq's biggest new oil projects. "Today...

Norwegian oil firm Statoil stuck by its production forecast for 2012 after first-quarter oil and gas output rose more than expected and said it was optimistic about a new tie-up with Rosneft to drill for oil in the Arctic. OSLO — Norwegian oil firm Statoil stuck by its production forecast for 2012 after first-quarter oil and gas output rose more than expected and said it was optimistic about a new tie-up with...

... job, then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered Igor Sechin to be included on a list of candidates for the chairmanship of state-owned Rosneftegaz, according to materials published on the government’s website Thursday. Rosneftegaz owns shares in Rosneft (75.16 percent) and Gazprom (10.74 percent) on behalf of the state. Sechin resigned as chairman of the holding company last year in line after a directive from then-President Dmitry Medvedev for government ministers to leave the boards of state...

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the government to approve a plan to sell assets held by state energy holding company Rosneftegaz in 2013-15, paving the way for the sale of stakes in Gazprom and Rosneft. President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the government to approve a plan to sell assets held by state energy holding company Rosneftegaz in 2013-15, paving the way for the sale of stakes in Gazprom and Rosneft. The decree appeared to represent...

... gas production rose 14.3 percent to 4.19 billion cubic meters. New fields saw their share of overall production rise 16 percent in the first quarter, compared with 11 percent in the same period of 2011. TNK-BP expects to sort out its cooperation with Rosneft on the Russian shelf by the middle of this year, TNK-BP's chief financial officer Jonathan Muir told journalists. At present, TNK-BP is at the preliminary stage of negotiations, and there are so far no proposal specifics or numbers, he said, adding...

... companies to explore Arctic deposits finally bore fruit last month, when international oil major ExxonMobil — encouraged by Putin's promises to ease taxation for offshore projects — agreed to establish a joint venture with state-controlled Rosneft. The deal was a landmark in developing Russia's offshore territories in the Arctic because it was the first in a series of similar agreements with Italy's Eni and Norway's Statoil, which followed in subsequent weeks. "Nobody will be able...

... contract. Eni owns 43 percent of Saipem, whose shares trade on the Milan Stock Exchange. For Eni, the deal was the third stroke of good fortune in this country last month. The Italian energy producer signed a deal on April 18 to team with state-controlled Rosneft to gain access to two Russian offshore projects. Earlier in the month it opened production at an Arctic oil and gas field with its local partners. Saipem also laid the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea for Gazprom. The Caspian-pipeline...

... continuous problems at its new northern oilfield of South Khylchuyu. The company expects its crude output to be stable this year after it fell by about 5 percent to 90.7 million tons last year. The Vankor oilfield in the Arctic, owned by top crude producer Rosneft, continued to ramp up its production, which increased 0.5 percent in April, month on month. Rosneft's total output remained flat. Daily gas production decreased to 1.87 billion cubic meters in April from 2 bcm in March due to declining seasonal...

State-owned oil giant Rosneft saw net profit to International Financial Reporting Standards fall 8.9 percent year on year in the first quarter to 112 billion rubles ($3.8 billion), according to a statement Wednesday. (MT) AvtoVAZ sold 56,219 cars in Russia in April, down 8...

... directors recommended channeling 24.24 percent of net profit to 2011 dividends. (Reuters) The European Commission has approved a deal for Sberbank and BNP Paribas to create a joint venture for Russian point-of-sale lending, Interfax reported Friday. (MT) Rosneft has formed two working groups with private Russian oil companies for discussions of joint operations and development in Russia's offshore zones, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said Friday. (MT)

... build our business on the model we use elsewhere: selling specialist, high-end services to sophisticated buyers who know the market. What we are seeing now is the beginning of a more cooperative approach to major upstream projects (for example, Exxon-Rosneft, Eni-Rosneft). This is because these projects are offshore, in deep water in the Arctic and far north and so are very demanding technologically and also hugely capital-intensive. The top Russian companies need access to Western technology and...

... dividend because the board does not have a quorum, the company said. The board has been below full strength since December, when two directors quit as shareholders locked horns in international arbitration over BP's attempt to secure a partnership with Rosneft in 2011. Earlier on Monday, TNK-BP said it appointed a new director to the board of TNK-BP Limited, the main holding company of TNK-BP Group, but will continue its search for another director to restore the board quorum. TNK-BP said the new appointee...

... half following the ban. "As a result [of the decision], oil refinery declined from 11,200 to 11,300 tons per day to 5,100," a spokesman said. Representatives of several other refineries have expressed concerns over the ban. A spokesman for Rosneft, the country's largest crude producer, said the company has written to Transportation Minister Igor Levitin asking him to postpone the ban until Aug. 1. The ban was set on May 5, according to a document posted on the watchdog's website Rostransnadzor...

... has already been announced," he said when asked about Sechin's proposal on April 4. "We are not interested in the positions of separate members of the government." Sechin stepped down from his position on the boards of state-controlled Rosneft, Rosneftegaz and InterRAO after Dvorkovich announced the list of ministers targeted by Medvedev's decision last year. No longer a member of the government, however, Sechin is set to return to Rosneftegaz on Putin's orders. An active user of the...

... coming from the ministry itself," he said. He singled out the ministry's apparently selective application of justice when it comes to polluting oil companies. "There was sharp criticism of TNK-BP for spilling oil, but nothing was said about Rosneft, which is spilling 10 times more than TNK-BP," he said. 417712 179742

... showing an immediate example of effective work during a videoconference on the problems of the domestic market for oil products that he chaired later that day. Following a question from the Zabaikalsky region governor, he phoned the newly appointed Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin during the videoconference to ask about the possibility of establishing regional subsidiaries of the state-controlled oil company in remote regions to prevent gas price hikes. “I’m on the air right now, I’ll...

.... At the same time, the departure of siloviki top dog Igor Sechin from government is another big shakeup in the structure of control over energy — he's been moved to head Rosneftgaz, the holding company that owns the state's stake in oil major Rosneft. This appointment has been widely taken to mean that Sechin will remain de facto in charge of energy. However, all this talk of power is to miss the point of Putin's government. In Yeltsin's day running the Kremlin was all about brokering power...

... and lucrative Russian assets on the other — could be the beginning of a period of bounty for foreign companies. Two international oil majors, ExxonMobil and Eni, have recently won unprecedented access to Arctic reserves in deals with state-owned Rosneft. But, just as with the large oil agreements, analysts warn that Renault's investment is not yet secure. "The deal itself is very raw," Metropol's Rozhkov said. "It's perfectly possible that in the future some conditions of the...

... Monday. The hawkish Sechin, dubbed the country’s energy tsar, lost his seat as deputy prime minister but received Putin’s support this month for returning to the chairmanship of Rosneftegaz, the state-owned company with a controlling stake in Rosneft. Shuvalov came under pressure in March amid Western media reports that his wife, Olga, had netted more than $100 million from a series of investment deals involving Russian billionaires. He has admitted to the deals but said they were all legal...