Reuters - "How Russia sold its oil jewel: without saying who bought it"

Lafayette · Jan 25, 2017

From here: How Russia sold its oil jewel: without saying who bought it

Excerpt:

More than a month after Russia announced one of its biggest privatizations since the 1990s, selling a 19.5 percent stake in its giant oil company Rosneft, it still isn't possible to determine from public records the full identities of those who bought it.

The stake was sold for 10.2 billion euros to a Singapore investment vehicle that Rosneft said was a 50/50 joint venture between Qatar and the Swiss oil trading firm Glencore.

Unveiling the deal at a televised meeting with Rosneft's boss Igor Sechin on Dec. 7, President Vladimir Putin called it a sign of international faith in Russia, despite U.S. and EU financial sanctions on Russian firms including Rosneft.

"It is the largest privatization deal, the largest sale and acquisition in the global oil and gas sector in 2016," Putin said.

It was also one of the biggest transfers of state property into private hands since the early post-Soviet years, when allies of President Boris Yeltsin took control of state firms and became billionaires overnight.

But important facts about the deal either have not been disclosed, cannot be determined solely from public records, or appear to contradict the straightforward official account of the stake being split 50/50 by Glencore and the Qataris.

To what extent is Putin's son-in-law, Kiril, involved? Maybe not at all? From here:

Kirill – a tall, dark-haired man with rimless glasses - was a rising star of Russian business, but still only 31. His fortunes began to skyrocket soon after his wedding to the president's daughter, a competitive acrobatic dancer who is now helping to oversee a $1.7 billion expansion of Moscow State University.

Within 18 months, Kirill acquired a large chunk of shares in a major Russian oil and petrochemical processor called Sibur - a stake now worth an estimated $2.85 billion, based on the value of recent share deals. He also quit his job as a business manager and set up a company to run his personal investments.

How did such a young businessman go so far, so fast? A Reuters examination of Shamalov's career shows that in the summer of 2013, months after he married Putin's daughter, Kirill opened discussions about buying shares in Sibur from one of the president's wealthiest friends.

My Point: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely*

Once upon a time, Russia was like most other countries on earth (except the US) where mineral rights (meaning minerals, liquids and gases) were owned by the state. That is, the property of the entire population - the profits of which are to benefit precisely that purpose as well.

No longer in Russia, since one of the first laws it passed (after the demise of Communist Rule) was to change underground property rights from government ownership to that of private companies. With the government retaining only a small part. That small-part has now been privatized - and for reasons that are suspect, the Russian people need not know the real identities of who Tsar Vladimir sold the ownership.

To his son-in-law by means of the ostensibly Qatari business people? One has a right to ask the question.

One day, "Tsar Vladimir" is going to plummet. For the Russian people, that day cannot come soon enough. His last election was warped, and he has no real legitimacy. What he has implemented is a communist-like hierarchy typical of that under which he found his first job at the KGB, and was inevitably launched into power by Yeltsin (his benefactor).

Russia has turned back in time about 36 years to 1991 when the last Communist president of Russia stepped down. Or maybe back to 1918 when the communists killed the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas?

Only now it wears a "facade" of republican stature ... ?

*Attributed to Lord Acton of England.

Reuters - "How Russia sold its oil jewel: without saying who bought it"

Lafayette