Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Russian State Oil Giant Buys Yukos Assets

Yukos headquarters in Moscow today (AFP)

May 3, 2007 -- Neft-Aktiv, a subsidiary of the state-owned oil giant Rosneft, has bought several key assets of the bankrupt Yukos oil group for $6.8 billion at an auction.

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May 03, 2007

The purchase of Yukos's production and refining units makes Rosneft the largest oil producer in Russia.

Yukos, once Russia's largest oil firm, was driven into bankruptcy after it was hit with billions of dollars in back taxes. Its chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was jailed on fraud and tax-evasion charges.

(AP, AFP)

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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Listen to the entire briefing (about 70 minutes):
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Vision Of Global Gas Cartel Gains Clarity

Putin To Take His Message To The Persian Gulf

Iranian Politicians Support Establishment Of Natural-Gas Cartel

'Gas OPEC' Moves Closer To Becoming Reality

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

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