Russia seeks to sell bulk of its 85% holding in oil group Rosneft, ministers hope BP will acquire a sizeable stake in the company
The Russian government wants to speed up and increase the size of the planned further privatisation of Rosneft, in the wake of the collapsed share swap with BP.
Ministers were planning to sell down more of their 85% stake in the oil group on the Moscow and London stock markets in 2013 if the BP deal had gone through.
Now they are looking at bringing this forward to next year and have said that they would be happy if BP bought shares in the company as part of a move that could see the government control falling below 50%.
The plans were revealed in an exclusive interview given to the Guardian by Arkady Dvorkovich, chief economic policy adviser to Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president.
"We want Rosneft to be a normal commercial public company," he said. "The original government proposals were to start [the share sale] in 2013 but maybe now it will be brought forward to 2012.
"It's not up to me to say what the best timing would be. That is up to the company itself and investment banks working on this."
Dvorkovich denied suggestions that the failure of BP to win the backing of its Russian shareholders inside TNK-BP for the Rosneft deal had frustrated the Kremlin. The collapse of the equity and Arctic drilling agreement was regrettable but not something that should be expected to blight the British company's future in Russia, he explained.
"It was not about politics but a business deal and it did not happen. But BP is one of the biggest Russian partners in the energy sector and we expect it to continue to play a major role in Russia and elsewhere."
Dvorkovich was building on comments made on Friday by Medvedev when he opened the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The president explained that the domination of state-owned companies had led to low entrepreneurial and low investment activity.
"Such an economic model poses a danger for the country's future. This is not my choice," Medvedev said in a speech interpreted by some as using fast-track economic development as an electioneering message for another term of office.
Under previous plans, the government has talked about raising $10bn (�6.2bn) annually from such sales over five years.
But Dvorkovich said that figure might now be raised by 50% to $15bn, meaning the Kremlin could be looking at a target of up to $75bn over five years.
He indicated that the money-raising might happen in London but alternatively could be done in New York, Hong Kong or even Shanghai ? or a combination of these. He said initial or further privatisation was on the cards for the grid operator FGC, former pride of the Soviet industrialisation programme, which quietly listed some existing shares in London three months ago.
There are similar possible plans for the shipping group Sovcomflot, banks such as VTB and possibly some airports.
But there are no plans currently for privatising in a similar way the giant gas group Gazprom. Dvorkovich cited the complexity of the domestic energy market, where the company is a monopoly provider. He said Russia recognised that its companies needed to attract new technology, stronger management skills and more vibrant research and development.
Rosneft would continue to talk to companies such as Shell about Arctic drilling deals but few expect the kind of share swap that had been proposed with BP.
Dvorkovich said he believed Russia had made progress convincing the European Union that his country did not want to use energy as a political weapon.
Turning off gas supplies to Ukraine in previous winters amid price rows never was about politics, said the government official. But he agreed that the Russian government was aware that some had interpreted it in that way, and this had damaged Russia and Gazprom.
Dvorkovich also accepted that there was ongoing tension with Europe over Russia's refusal to open its markets up to foreign competition. This was a difficult issue but he said: "We are trying to find a solution to this."
Medvedev is also keen to build Moscow and regional cities as financial centres but accepts that corruption must be tackled and corporate governance standards improved to achieve this.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/19/russia-rosneft-oil-companies
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