Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Russia

Italy's ENI Buys Yukos Assets At Auction

(RFE/RL)

April 4, 2007 -- A subsidiary of Italy's ENI energy giant, EniNeftegaz, won an auction today for a package of assets of bankrupt Russian oil company Yukos for $5.8 billion.

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April 04, 2007

In line with an earlier agreement, EniNeftegaz offered Russian giant Gazprom the option to buy a 51-percent interest in three of the auctioned companies within two years. It also offered Gazprom to purchase a 20 percent stake in Russia's fifth largest oil company, Gazpromneft, which was among the Yukos assets.

Gazprom Deputy CEO Aleksandr Medvedev said the company planned to accept the offer.

Yukos was driven into bankruptcy after it was hit with billions of dollars in back taxes and its chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was convicted for fraud and tax evasion.

(AFP, AP, dpa)

An OPEC For Natural Gas?

A tanker carries liquified natural gas to markets in Asia (AFP)

COMING TOGETHER? PFC energy analyst Nikos Tsafos and RFE/RL energy analyst Roman Kupchinsky discussed with an RFE/RL briefing what the likelihood is of a natural-gas-producers consortium being formed and what such an organization might look like.

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Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More

Protesters gather behind a banner reading "Honest Elections" during a demonstration in Moscow on February 4.

How To Rig An Election

A whistle-blower in Samara explains how the authorities fixed the Duma elections in December -- and plan to do the same in the presidential vote in March. More