rosneft
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see sechin</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">qz jul 2017</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://qz.com/1034589/exxonmobil-made-illegal-deals-with-russia-when-secretary-of-state-rex-tillerson-ran-the-company">https://qz.com/1034589/exxonmobil-made-illegal-deals-with-russia-when-secretary-of-state-rex-tillerson-ran-the-company</a></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">when Rex Tillerson ran ExxonMobil, he made his name making deals in Russia, which in turn made Donald Trump’s decision to appoint him as secretary of State contentious. Skepticism about Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian state and its connections to the highest levels of the Trump administration dogged his confirmation hearings.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Now, it turns out at least some of those Russia deals made while he was CEO broke US law. The sanctions cops at the US Treasury Department have levied a fine of $2 million (pdf) on ExxonMobil for violating sanctions put in place to punish Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That fine is, of course, a tiny drop in the ocean of Exxon’s petroleum profits of $7.8 billion last year. The violations hinge on some awkward timing. The US issued an executive order in March 2014, forbidding “the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services” from someone on the sanctions list. Igor Sechin, a Putin crony who earned the moniker “Darth Vader” for his forbidding style, was added to that list in April. In May, ExxonMobil signed a series of agreements with Sechin, who was acting in his capacity as the president of Rosneft, the Russian state oil firm.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This was a no-no. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces sanctions, called the deal an “egregious case” that showed “reckless disregard” for US sanctions.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In a statement issued today, Exxon said the action is “fundamentally unfair,” and that it would file a legal challenge to overturn OFAC’s judgement.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Exxon said that the sanctions were aimed at Sechin’s personal wealth, not at Rosneft; it notes that a British oil company’s American CEO was allowed to attend board meetings with Sechin and that White House officials described the sanctions as an effort to target individuals, not companies. OFAC, on the other hand, said in its statement that it doesn’t recognize “an exception or carve-out for the professional conduct of designated or blocked persons,” and that the only thing that matters is the letter of the law.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>OFAC also noted that “ExxonMobil’s senior-most executives knew of Sechin’s status as [a sanctioned individual] when they dealt in the blocked services of Sechin.” ExxonMobil’s senior-most executive at that time was Tillerson.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The next month, Tillerson was asked about sanctions by the Associated Press and said “there has been no impact on any of our business activities in Russia to this point, nor has there been any discernible impact on the relationship. The organizations continue to work business as usual.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rosneft was crucial to Exxon. </b>In 2011, Exxon had begun working with the Russian firm in a $600 million deal to exploit Russian shale oil reserves. That represented an important gain in Exxon’s long-running battle to replenish its oil reserves, the key to the long-term survival of its business. The 2014 sanctions were a big obstacle to its success.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Three years later, during his confirmation hearing, Tillerson told senators that “to my knowledge, Exxon never directly lobbied against sanctions.” Politifact rated this statement “mostly false,” since Exxon had in fact paid a lobby group to lobby on the issue and Tillerson had spoken publicly of making Exxon’s opposition to sanctions known “at the highest levels.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">220 sanctions venez?!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/world/americas/venezuela-russia-sanctions-trump.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/world/americas/venezuela-russia-sanctions-trump.html</a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nyt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div><b>U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Russian Oil Company Supporting Venezuela’s Leader</b></div><div><b>The penalties seek to pressure President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela to give up power, nearly two years after he was re-elected in a widely disputed vote.</b></div><div>
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</div><div>By Lara Jakes</div><div>Feb. 18, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>WASHINGTON — The United States on Tuesday imposed tough economic sanctions against a Russian oil giant that is keeping Venezuela’s ruling government afloat, gambling that the newest penalties against President Nicolás Maduro will not roil global oil prices.</div><div>
</div><div>The broad sanctions were levied against Rosneft Trading, a subsidiary of the Russian state-controlled Rosneft Oil Company, and Didier Casimiro, the subsidiary’s president and board chairman. Mr. Casimiro is also identified on the Rosneft website as the parent company’s vice president for refining.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The sanctions may have only a limited impact on global markets, experts said. Venezuela’s oil exports have dwindled since the Trump administration began a campaign last year to pressure Mr. Maduro into leaving power, after his widely disputed re-election in May 2018.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Oil markets seemed to shrug off the sanctions, dipping about a half-percent in trading on Tuesday with prices at around $51.80 per barrel.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the sanctions will lash Venezuela’s already-faltering economy. They also follow a highly public effort by Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan opposition leader, to pressure allies to take a more aggressive stance against Mr. Maduro. On Tuesday, <b>Mr. Guaidó called the sanctions “a victory” on Twitter, adding, “Those who support the dictator, whoever they are, wherever they come from, should assume the consequences.”</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Venezuela is exporting about 70 percent of its oil through Rosneft in what <b>Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described as the “looting of Venezuela’s oil assets by the corrupt Maduro regime.”</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“This is a campaign of pressure,” said Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s special envoy for Venezuela policy. “And the pressure continues to mount.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>“I would not say that any individual step can be calculated to bring an end to the crisis,” Mr. Abrams said. “But I think this is a very significant step, and I think you will see companies all over the world in the oil sector now move away from dealing with Rosneft Trading.”</div><div>
</div><div>Administration officials insisted that the global oil market was stable enough to withstand the new penalties against Rosneft or any entity that does business with it. Officials also said Rosneft’s customers would be given 90 days to unwind themselves from the Russian shipping company.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Mr. Maduro has led Venezuela’s economy into shambles and prompted an exodus of millions of people into neighboring South American states. The sanctions are among the biggest hits to Venezuela’s economy since the United States banned Venezuela’s state oil company last January, said Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuela energy expert at Rice University in Houston.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“Rosneft will now have to think how much Venezuela is worth from a business standpoint, compared to the costs of remaining under sanctions,” Mr. Monaldi said.</div><div>
</div><div>But, he added, the sanctions could misfire if Rosneft concludes that the higher costs of doing business in Venezuela are justified by the geopolitical benefit of helping out Russia’s key ally in South America.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rosneft sells about two-thirds of Venezuela’s oil, largely to Asia, and often by obscuring the cargo’s source and destination. Officials said Mr. Maduro was taking the profits from the oil sales facilitated by Rosneft to hang onto power, in part by bolstering the Venezuelan military and its harsh crackdown against the public.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Rosneft’s trading subsidiary was created in 2011 to help its Moscow-based parent company carry out foreign projects, including shipping crude oil. In the last few years, faced with American and European sanctions, Rosneft has pushed deeply into places like Cuba, China, Egypt and Vietnam.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Its two largest customers are China and India, both of which have struggled to procure sufficient oil supplies after the Trump administration imposed sanctions against Iran. In the case of India, where Mr. Trump is scheduled to visit next week, the government in Delhi has been forced to find new suppliers — including from the United States.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Additionally, the world is currently flooded with oil since the coronavirus is cutting millions of barrels a day of demand in the Chinese market. Curtailing Venezuela’s 700,000 barrels of daily production should have little if any impact on global oil prices.</div><div>
</div><div>Clearview Energy Partners, a consultancy, described Tuesday’s sanctions as “somewhat limited in nature.” It can take weeks, however, for market effects from sanctions to be fully seen.</div><div>
</div><div>Mr. Abrams noted that global oil prices were down compared with when the Trump administration began its sanctions campaign against Mr. Maduro’s government.</div><div>
</div><div>“We’re not trying to raise oil prices — we’re trying to diminish the amount of money available to the Maduro regime,” Mr. Abrams told reporters at the State Department.</div><div>
</div><div>Trump administration officials outlined a series of transactions and planned shipments over the last year — including millions of barrels of crude oil — as evidence of Rosneft’s support to Mr. Maduro. Last month alone, officials said, Rosneft helped deliver two million barrels of crude to West Africa from Venezuela.</div><div>
</div><div>Anatoly Kurmanaev contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela; Julie Turkewitz from Bogotá, Colombia; and Clifford Krauss from Houston.</div><div>
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump inaugr slush fund:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">75</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">502<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1502<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ORG<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;">
</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHEVRON PRODUCTS COMPANY</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$500,000</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">1/12/2017</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PO BOX 6042</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SAN RAMON</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CA</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">94583</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chevron is deeply entangled with the Russian oil industry. </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chevon has multiple contracts with</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Rosneft,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> several joint ventures in Russia, and funded $800 million of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); white-space: pre;"> </span></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">76</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/books/review/blowout-rachel-maddow.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/books/review/blowout-rachel-maddow.html</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rachel Maddow Takes On the Oil Industry</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Fareed Zakaria</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oct. 30, 2019</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BLOWOUT</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Rachel Maddow</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For those who have watched Rachel Maddow’s television show, the opening scene of her book will feel familiar in its eye for a compelling anecdote. She tells the 2003 story of a small new business in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood that is about to be inaugurated by a head of state, in fact, “one of the most powerful men on the planet.” We’re intrigued. It turns out the business is a gas station. What’s going on? Four paragraphs later, we learn that the mystery man is Vladimir Putin, who is publicizing one of a string of American gas stations acquired by the Russian oil giant Lukoil. Having piqued your interest, Maddow now broadens her narrative and explains why this anecdote is an apt illustration of the book’s larger point — the centrality and influence of the oil and gas industry.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Blowout” is a rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting and alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world today. While she is clearly animated by a concern about climate change, Maddow mostly describes the political consequences of an industry that has empowered some of the strangest people in the United States and the most unsavory ones abroad. It is “essentially a big casino,” she writes, “that can produce both power and triumphant great gobs of cash, often with little regard for merit.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">How much cash? Maddow tells the incredible, depressing story of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of the long-serving dictator of <b>Equatorial Guinea,</b> a country that saw its oil revenues grow from $2.1 million in 1993 to a staggering $3.9 billion in 2007. Despite these billions pouring into state coffers, an NGO observed in 2009, “77 percent of the population lives in poverty, 35 percent die before the age of 40 and 57 percent lack access to safe water.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But life at that time is good for Teodoro, who owns a $100 million house in Paris, a $30 million beach house in Malibu, a $7 million vacation home in South Africa, one of the world’s largest yachts and dozens of racecars. When his drivers take one of Teodoro’s many girlfriends shopping, they are given a shoe box filled with up to $80,000 in cash for a single outing. His bill for one spree at an auction house in 2010, Maddow notes, would have paid the entire annual wages of 3,300 of his countrymen, since three-quarters of them live on $2 a day. (Teodoro does now face international investigations and pressure on various fronts.)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>While there are many colorful tales about villains, scoundrels and adventurers, the through-line of this book is the story of the rise of Vladimir Putin.</b> The most important geopolitical consequence of the oil and gas boom of the last 20 years has been Russia’s development into a full-blown petrostate, Putin’s consolidation of power and his determination to use this capacity to protect himself and disrupt the West.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Maddow carefully takes us through the manner in which Putin asserted greater and greater control over Russia’s vast oil and gas resources. The key move was the takeover of what was then Russia’s largest oil company, Yukos, run by a brilliant entrepreneur, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. By 2003, Khodorkovsky had built Yukos into a $36 billion company, providing an estimated 5 percent of the total tax revenues of the Russian government, and was planning to acquire a competitor, Sibneft, which would make the conglomerate the world’s fourth largest oil producer.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This was not to be. By the end of 2003, Khodorkovsky had been jailed for tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement. The Russian government charged that Yukos owed $27.5 billion in taxes and penalties. In 2004, the company was sold in an auction that lasted six minutes. The winning bid — at the firesale price of $9.3 billion — was from an unknown company with an initial capitalization of $300. That company quickly sold Yukos to the state-owned oil giant, Rosneft, at cost. Putin now controlled some of Russia’s largest and most productive oil assets.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>As oil prices rose, so did Putin’s ambitions, </b>which reached a symbolic height with his decision to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, a Russian resort town with little snow and lousy facilities. No matter, that seemed part of the plan, because what ensued was an orgy of construction and corruption. In a detailed, thorough analysis of the project, the Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov concluded that the Sochi Olympics had cost more than the previous 21 Winter Olympics combined, because Putin’s favored builders had lined their pockets with $25-$30 billion. A year later, Nemtsov was dead, assassinated just outside the Kremlin’s walls.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the book’s themes is the degree to which Western capitalists — bankers and oilmen — abetted Putin’s rise to power, cheered on his capture of resources and partnered with him no matter what he was doing to Russia’s democratic and capitalist experiment.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Chief among them was Exxon’s C.E.O. Rex Tillerson (</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">later the secretary of state), who was so cooperative that in 2013 Putin awarded him the Order of Friendship, one of the country’s highest honors bestowed on a foreigner. And Tillerson was a fast friend indeed. Maddow quotes from a 2016 conversation in which T</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">illerson explained that after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and <b>annexation of Crimea,</b> he visited Russia and was surprised by his interactions with Putin and his aides. “The first question they asked me was … ‘Are you O.K.?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, I’m fine. Why do you ask?’ They said, ‘Well, we just wondered whether your government was coming after you because you’ve been doing business with us.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">’” Tillerson marveled that “they were more worried about me.” What amazing concern and consideration! For him, Putin’s aggression seemed far less noteworthy than his empathy.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ukraine features prominently in Maddow’s account because it has become the central struggle between Putin and the West, and America in particular. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">She describes how Putin was outraged by American support for the</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> ouster of the corrupt and pro-Russian Ukrainian leader, Viktor Yanukovych, which happened in the midst of his triumphant Sochi Olympics.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Putin was already deeply hostile toward the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton in particular, for having given verbal support to pro—democracy protests in Moscow. For Putin, Western efforts at regime change could only be countered by his own attacks on Western democracies.</span></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">collusion?</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Steele’s memo labeled “Company Intelligence Report” or CIR 112, according to the Alfa complaint against Simpson, “specifically discusses the Plaintiffs. Its title, by itself, is defamatory: <b>‘RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: KREMIN-ALPHA [sic] GROUP CO-OPERATION.’ CIR 112 suggests that Alfa and its executives, including the Plaintiffs, ‘cooperated’ in an alleged Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”</b></font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Alfa complaint goes on to cite CIR 112 alleging the “‘current closeness’ of an ‘Alpha Group/PUTIN relationship,’ including that ‘[s]ignificant favors continue to be done in both directions’ and that ‘FRIDMAN and AVEN [are] still giving informal advice to PUTIN, especially on the US.’”</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Dossier, as cited in the Alfa complaint, then went on to allege that in the 1990s a former employee of the group who now works closely with Putin got his start by delivering “large amounts of illicit cash to the Russian president, at that time deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg” and by 2016 was serving as an intermediary between Alfa and Putin.</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The allegations are false,” says the Alfa complaint. “And their defamatory nature is clear: CIR 112 alleges that, in the 1990s, Alfa (a member of ‘Alpha Group’) and three of its largest beneficial owners purportedly engaged in actions of criminal bribery of Vladimir Putin, a public official, to secure favorable business treatment.” </font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In fact, the alleged purveyor of cash to Putin, Oleg Govorun, did not join Alfa officially until after Putin left the St. Petersburg mayor’s office. But, interestingly, Govorun, currently head of Putin's directorate for social and economic cooperation with the Commonwealth of Independent States, is on the new sanctions list from the Treasury.</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why would Mueller include a reference to the complaint against Fusion GPS in the van der Zwaan sentencing memo?</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Khan, who ranked number 11 on the 2017 Forbes list of Russian billionaires, makes an interesting contrast with the bookish, wholesome-looking van der Zwaan, who, according to his lawyers, is desperate to get home to his pregnant wife in Britain. A 2008 U.S. embassy memo from Moscow published by WikiLeaks provided a description of Khan, known as one of Russia’s most ruthless businessmen, by a British oil executive named Tim Summers, who went on a hunting trip with him:</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Khan had shown up for the trip with not just his girl friend (Khan is married) but also with six prostitutes. They had flown out to Khan’s hunting lodge, which Summers said was like a Four Seasons hotel in the middle of nowhere. At dinner that evening, Khan had told a stunned Summers that The Godfather was his favorite movie, that he watched it every few months, and that he considered it a ‘manual for life.’ Khan had also come to dinner armed with a chrome-plated pistol.”</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Khan and Mikhail Fridman, both originally from Ukraine, created the Alfa Group in 1989, along with Alexei Kuzmichev, and were later joined by Petr Aven. The group included Alfa Bank, one of the largest private banks in Russia with branches worldwide, a 50 percent stake in the oil giant TNK-BP and Alfa-Eko, which exported oil and was headed by Khan. According to a report from the research firm Stratfor in 2007, available on WikiLeaks, <b>Aven was known to be an especially close personal friend</b>of <b>Rosneft chief Igor Sechin, a key Putin ally (PDF).</b></font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And the Alfa Group and Sechin have worked closely in the oil business. In 2013, Rosneft purchased Alfa’s stake in TNK-BP for $27.7 billion, </b>and Alfa invested the proceeds in a new consortium, LetterOne, an international investment business, focusing on energy, technology, and health.</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 29.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite their well-established ties to Putin—Aven’s friendship with Putin, as he openly acknowledges, goes back to the early 1990s—the Alfa Group billionaires have thus far avoided Western sanctions by maintaining a careful balance between meeting Kremlin requirements and maintaining a favorable public image in the West. Alfa Bank notably pulled out of Crimea after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the region, which it publicly opposed, and it was the only large Russian bank to be exempted from sanctions.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Josh Rogin</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Inside Rex Tillerson’s long romance with Russia</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Josh Rogin December 13, 2016 </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s Transition: Who is Rex Tillerson? Embed Share Play Video1:23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President-elect Donald Trump has picked Rex Tillerson as his nominee for secretary of state. Here's what you need to know about Tillerson. (Thomas Johnson, Victoria Walker, Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the presidential campaign, the Trump team fought off accusations that it had direct connections with senior Russian officials and oligarchs. Now, President-elect Donald Trump has appointed as his secretary of state Rex Tillerson, a businessman who has some of the most deep and long-standing ties to the Russian political and business elite of any American.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Not so long ago, the Trump camp disavowed its former foreign policy adviser Carter Page when it was reported in September that he had met with Igor Sechin, head of the Russian oil giant Rosneft. </span>In fact, Page had never met with Sechin. But after leading Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), called for an FBI investigation into Page’s relationship with the sanctioned Russian tycoon, the Trump team pretended he had never even been part of the campaign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, has a close and personal relationship with Sechin dating back over a decade. The connection was integral to ExxonMobil’s ability to deeply penetrate the corrupt but lucrative Russian oil market — and it almost led to Russia’s energy industry acquiring a significant stake in strategic American assets.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tillerson’s involvement in Russia dates back to 1998, when he was appointed head of Exxon Neftegas Limited, which was in charge of the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project off the coast of Siberia. The huge project put Tillerson in line to become the corporation’s vice president, president and eventually chairman and chief executive officer. It also led to deep relationships with Russian leaders and a growing profile for Tillerson in the Russian press.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In 2004, the same year that Tillerson became president of ExxonMobil, Sechin took control of Rosneft</b>,</span> the company in charge of the Russian part of the Sakhalin-1 consortium. The Rosneft partnership was not the first time ExxonMobil had attempted to join forces with a major Russian energy firm. Tillerson’s predecessor had negotiated a deal with Russian energy giant Yukos for a stake in that company. But the Kremlin turned on Yukos and its boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky, imprisoning him in 2003 on what were widely seen as politically motivated charges.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will Senate Republicans vote to confirm Rex Tillerson as secretary of state? Embed Share Play Video3:30</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Washington Post's Paul Kane and Steven Mufson explain why Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state, might face a few hurdles in his confirmation. (The Washington Post)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tillerson learned the lessons of the Yukos episode, namely that no deal with a Russian business or oligarch is safe unless it is sanctioned by the Russian government. In a 2005 interview, he laid out his strategy for doing business in Russia, focusing on partnership over investment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“ExxonMobil is not interested in buying shares in other companies, because it does not allow us to fully do what we do best. We invest in Russia, not only money,” Tillerson said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Tillerson’s close relationship with Sechin and Rosneft benefited both sides in their competition with Gazprom,</b> Russia’s largest gas producer, which also holds significant oil assets. In 2006, Gazprom tried to exert control over the export of gas from the Sakhalin-1 project and Tillerson fought back, using the relationship with Rosneft to his advantage.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2011, Tillerson and Sechin raised the ExxonMobil-Rosneft relationship to a new level by signing the first in a series of deals as part of a “Strategic Cooperation Agreement” that involved deep cooperation in exploration and exploitation of energy sources in the Arctic and the Black Sea.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As part of this set of agreements, ExxonMobil was to give Rosneft subsidiaries big stakes in American and Canadian oil projects. A subsidiary of Rosneft based in Delaware struck a deal for 30 percent equity in ExxonMobil’s share of a project in West Texas and the rights to acquire 30 percent of ExxonMobil holdings in the Gulf of Mexico. Another Rosneft subsidiary struck a deal to acquire 30 percent of Exxon’s stake in the Cardium formation in Alberta, Canada, where development of the tar sands reserves was underway.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These agreements are important milestones in this strategic relationship,” Tillerson said at the time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The agreements led to Tillerson having several direct interactions with then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who remarked during one meeting with Tillerson in 2011 that it was scary to even think of the scale of the deals, which were estimated to be worth between $200 billion and $300 billion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sechin, who was also deputy prime minister at the time, was often referred to as “Darth Vader” in the Russia press and was eager to improve his public image. He traveled to New York in April 2012 and went on a publicity tour with Tillerson to tout the ExxonMobil-Rosneft cooperation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In June 2012, Tillerson attended an event with Putin and Sechin in which Putin inaugurated a new presidential commission on fuel and energy. Sechin was appointed head of the commission. Putin spoke with Tillerson and publicly praised ExxonMobil’s involvement. “This is the best evidence that the relationship between Russia and the United States continues to develop,” Putin said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Putin, Sechin and Tillerson all met again in Moscow in 2012.</b> This video, widely circulated yesterday, shows Putin and Tillerson celebrating one of the many ExxonMobil-Rosneft cooperation deals and toasting each other with champagne. In 2013, Putin awarded Tillerson the Order of Friendship, a high honor for a foreigner in Russia.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In 2014, the U.S. government slapped several sets of sanctions on Russian officials and entities in response to Putin’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine. Rosneft and Sechin were among the targeted entities, making it illegal for any American to do business with them. ExxonMobil’s projects with Rosneft were stalled. The losses for ExxonMobil were reported to be more than $1 billion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Tillerson lowered his profile in Russia but continued to meet with non-sanctioned high-level Russian officials in Moscow, including Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.</b> ExxonMobil also became embroiled in a dispute with the Russian government over $500 million the company said it overpaid in Russian taxes. Rosneft and Sechin sided with Tillerson in this dispute.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At various times, Tillerson has criticized the U.S. sanctions against Russia.</b> At ExxonMobil’s 2014 annual meeting, he said, “We do not support sanctions, generally, because we don’t find them to be effective unless they are very well implemented comprehensively, and that’s a very hard thing to do.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Talking about the Russia projects at a conference in 2015, he said, “We’ll await a time in which the sanctions environment changes or the sanctions requirements change.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In June of this year, Tillerson traveled to Moscow for the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which Sechin also attended. “As to the sanctions questions, I’ll use the same approach that my friend Mr. Sechin took. That’s a question for the government,” he said at the forum. Sechin laughed and gave him a thumbs-up.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sechin told a Reuters reporter that the sanctions hurt him in a personal way; he would no longer be able to come the United States to take motorcycle rides with Tillerson. Now, the time may have come for Sechin and Tillerson to resume their business partnership and their personal friendship.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russia leaders have praised the Tillerson appointment this week while some senators in both parties in Washington have expressed deep concerns. Tillerson’s appointment comes in the middle of a separate but related controversy over Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential campaign through hacking and other means.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There are a number of senators who are hot to trot on the Russia issue, period. When you create a nexus between your State Department nominee and Russia, you’ve put it on steroids,” one senior GOP Senate staffer told me. “The fact that members are even wrestling with this does not bode well for his nomination.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the CEO of ExxonMobil, Tillerson had the duty and obligation to fight for the interests of his company. The question is whether he can now pivot and assure senators he will shed any conflicts of interest and advocate for the interests of the country.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft m flagged</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rosneft</b> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Russian</a>: <span lang="ru">Росне́фть</span>, <small>IPA: </small><span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Russian" title="Help:IPA for Russian" style="background: none; text-decoration: none !important;">[rɐˈsʲnʲefʲtʲ]</a></span>) is an integrated oil company majority owned by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Russia" title="Government of Russia" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Government of Russia</a>. Rosneft is headquartered in Moscow's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balchug" title="Balchug" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Balchug</a> district near the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlin" title="Kremlin" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Kremlin</a>, across the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskva_River" title="Moskva River" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Moskva River</a>. Rosneft became Russia's leading extraction and refinement company after purchasing assets of former oil giant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos" title="Yukos" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Yukos</a> at state-run auctions. In March 2013, Rosneft became the largest publicly traded <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_company" class="mw-redirect" title="Oil company" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">oil company</a>, after buying <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNK-BP" title="TNK-BP" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">TNK-BP</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-rt210313_2-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-rt210313-2" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-reuters220313_3-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-reuters220313-3" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><div id="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><h2 style="background: none; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h2> <span class="toctoggle" style="user-select: none;"> [<a role="button" tabindex="0" id="togglelink" style="background: none; cursor: pointer;">hide</a>] </span></div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Overview" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Overview</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#History" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">History</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Origin" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Origin</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Yukos_auctions.2C_2004_and_2007" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Yukos auctions, 2004 and 2007</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#2006_IPO" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">2006 IPO</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Arctic_shelf_deals_with_BP_and_ExxonMobil" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Arctic shelf deals with BP and ExxonMobil</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Black_sea_shelf_deal_with_ExxonMobil" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.5</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Black sea shelf deal with ExxonMobil</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#TNK-BP_acquisition" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.6</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">TNK-BP acquisition</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Government_share_sale" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.7</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Government share sale</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Essar_Oil" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.8</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Essar Oil</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Management" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Management</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#See_also" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">See also</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#References" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">5</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#Further_reading" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Further reading</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#External_links" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">External links</span></font></a></li></ul></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); font-family: " linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Overview">Overview</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rosneft&action=edit§ion=1" title="Edit section: Overview" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rosneft conducts oil and gas exploration and production activities on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakhalin" title="Sakhalin" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Sakhalin</a> island, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia" title="Siberia" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Siberia</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timan-Pechora_field" class="mw-redirect" title="Timan-Pechora field" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Timan-Pechora field</a> and in southern Russia, including Chechnya. It owns and operates two refineries. The refinery in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuapse" title="Tuapse" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Tuapse</a>, on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea" title="Black Sea" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Black Sea</a>, focuses on refining high-gravity oil from western Siberia. Another plant in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsomolsk-on-Amur" title="Komsomolsk-on-Amur" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Komsomolsk-on-Amur</a> is the easternmost refinery in Russia. The Komsomolsk Refinery benefits from its technological integration with Nakhodkanefteprodukt, while the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuapse" title="Tuapse" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Tuapse</a> Refinery is noted for its favorable location on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea" title="Black Sea" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Black Sea</a> coast and is part of an integrated complex with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tuapsenefteprodukt&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tuapsenefteprodukt (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Tuapsenefteprodukt</a>. Rosneft operates shipping (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arkhangelsknefteprodukt&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Arkhangelsknefteprodukt (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Arkhangelsknefteprodukt</a>), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_transport" title="Pipeline transport" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">pipeline</a> and marketing companies. As of 29 December 2006, the company's market value was US$83.908 billion.<sup id="cite_ref-interfax1_4-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-interfax1-4" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup> Rosneft net income fell 20% for the first quarter of 2009 from $2.56 billion to $2.06 billion due to the weakness of oil price.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup> Rosneft is 75.16% owned by the Russian state, BP a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom owns a 19.75% stake while around 5% of the shares are in free float.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); font-family: " linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="History">History</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rosneft&action=edit§ion=2" title="Edit section: History" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: none; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Origin">Origin</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rosneft&action=edit§ion=3" title="Edit section: Origin" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">e</a></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rosneft was established in 1993 as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_enterprise" title="Unitary enterprise" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">unitary enterprise</a> with assets previously held by Rosneftegaz, the successor to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union" title="Soviet Union" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Soviet Union</a>'s Ministry of Oil and Gas. During the early 1990s almost all Russian oil companies and refineries were extracted from Rosneft to form ten integrated companies. Later their number was halved as a result of acquisitions. On 29 September 1995, an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Government_of_Russia" title="Order of the Government of Russia" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Order of the Government of Russia</a> №971 transformed Rosneft into an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_joint_stock_company" class="mw-redirect" title="Open joint stock company" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">open joint stock company</a>. In October 1998, the Russian government appointed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Bogdanchikov" title="Sergey Bogdanchikov" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Sergey Bogdanchikov</a> as president. The company owned two obsolete refineries and several low-productive and poorly managed oil-producing assets. In the late 1990s, plans for Rosneft's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Russia" title="Privatization in Russia" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">privatization in Russia</a> were made, but due to competition with equally influential <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretender" title="Pretender" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">pretenders</a> they were not carried out. In 2001, the company became Russia's official representative on projects with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_sharing_agreement" title="Production sharing agreement" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">production sharing agreements</a>. In 2003, Rosneft began oil production at the Aday block in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atyrau_Region" title="Atyrau Region" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Atyrau Region</a> near the Caspian Sea in Western <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan" title="Kazakhstan" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Kazakhstan</a>. In 2004 Rosneft had increased oil output from 98.56 million bbl (13.47 million tonnes) in 2001 to 148.26 million bbl (20.27 million tonnes). In the same year Rosneft agreed to merge with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom" title="Gazprom" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Gazprom</a> but plans were discarded in May 2005. It is alleged that Bogdanchikov did not wish to take a lesser role in the integrated company answering to Gazprom CEO <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Miller" class="mw-redirect" title="Alexei Miller" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Alexei Miller</a>.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: none; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Yukos_auctions.2C_2004_and_2007">Yukos auctions, 2004 and 2007</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
In March 2007 Rosneft had announced it hoped to increase production from 80 million tonnes in 2006 to 103 million tonnes by the end of 2007, wanted to extract 140 million tonnes of oil by 2012 and become a global top three energy company.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[8]</a></sup> In June 2007, Rosneft paid $731 million for the transportation assets of Yukos, which had declared bankrupt in August 2006 after three years of litigation over tax arrears.<sup id="cite_ref-eurasia1_9-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-eurasia1-9" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup> In August 2007 Bogdanchikov said that although the Yukos acquisitions had increased Rosnefts debt to $US 26 billion, he planned to reduce debt to 30% of total assets by 2010 by tripling refining capacity and expand into China.<sup id="cite_ref-RT_10-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-RT-10" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup>Starting in 2004, the Russian government organized a series of auctions to sell oil giant's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos" title="Yukos" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Yukos</a> assets, of which Rosneft won the majority. On 22 December 2004, Rosneft had purchased a then little known Russian oil company called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_Finance_Group" class="mw-redirect" title="Baikal Finance Group" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Baikal Finance Group</a>. Three days earlier, the previously unheard-of Baikal Group had purchased Yukos main asset <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuganskneftegaz" title="Yuganskneftegaz" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Yuganskneftegaz</a> (Yugansk) at a state-run auction for 9.35 billion dollars (6.9 billion euros), supposedly to satisfy tax debts. Many<sup class="noprint Inline-Template" style="line-height: 1; white-space: nowrap;">[<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Unsupported_attributions" title="Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span title="The material near this tag possibly uses too-vague attribution or weasel words. (January 2015)">who?</span></a></i>]</sup> viewed this as a de facto nationalization of Yugansk. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Illarionov" class="mw-redirect" title="Andrei Illarionov" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Andrei Illarionov</a>, then a senior Putin economic advisor, denounced it as "the scam of the year".<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosneft#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup>With the addition of Yungansk Rosneft became Russia's second-largest producer of oil and gas by 2005, with an average output of 1.69 million bpd.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: none; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="2006_IPO">2006 IPO</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On 14 July 2006, Rosneft conducted one of the largest <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering" title="Initial public offering" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">initial public offerings</a> in financial history, after placing nearly 15% of its shares on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Trading_System" title="Russian Trading System" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Russian Trading System</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Stock_Exchange" title="London Stock Exchange" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">London Stock Exchange</a>. The offering raised USD 10.7 billion. Shares were priced at $7.55, resulting in Rosneft being valued at $79.8 billion. Rosneft achieved its objective largely by arranging bilateral deals with strategic investors, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Petroleum" class="mw-redirect" title="British Petroleum" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">British Petroleum</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas" title="Petronas" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Petronas</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNPC" class="mw-redirect" title="CNPC" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">CNPC</a>, which bought almost $2.6 billion worth of shares during the IPO. Three <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy" title="Oligarchy" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">oligarchs</a> invested over $1 billion each on the LSE, namely <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Abramovich" title="Roman Abramovich" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Roman Abramovich</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lisin" title="Vladimir Lisin" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Vladimir Lisin</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Deripaska" title="Oleg Deripaska" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Oleg Deripaska</a>. Critics of the deal included financier <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros" title="George Soros" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">George Soros</a>, who called on investors to boycott it on ethical grounds, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Illarionov" class="mw-redirect" title="Andrei Illarionov" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Andrei Illarionov</a>, who called the deal illegal and "a crime against the Russian people," because none of the proceeds would go into the state budget. The British Financial Services Authority authorised the flotation of Rosneft shares despite an appeal from Yukos, saying that to allow the Rosneft IPO would be tantamount to facilitating the sale of stolen goods.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: none; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Arctic_shelf_deals_with_BP_and_ExxonMobil">Arctic shelf deals with BP and ExxonMobil</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rosneft&action=edit§ion=6" title="Edit section: Arctic shelf deals with BP and ExxonMobil" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h3><div role="note" class="hatnote" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See also: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-Prinovozemelsky_field" title="East-Prinovozemelsky field" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">East-Prinovozemelsky field</a></font></div></div><div role="note" class="hatnote" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div>