| Publish Date: Saturday,24 December, 2005, at 10:55 AM Doha Time |
A Sibneft official said the firm’s extraordinary shareholders meeting elected seven managers from Gazprom to Sibneft’s nine-seat board, while representatives of oil firm YUKOS obtained the two remaining seats.
The purchase of Sibneft from its previous shareholders, led by Chelsea soccer club’sbnaire owner Roman Abramovich, became the first step in Gazprom’s new strategy to add large crude operations to its gas activities.
The world’s largest gas producer now controls 900,000 barrels per day of crude oil and gas condensate
production.
The EGM also confirmed Gazprom’s deputy chief executive Alexander Ryazanov as the new president of Sibneft. A Sibneft official quoted Ryazanov as saying the firm was keen to boost production and would help Gazprom develop untapped oil deposits in the Arctic Urengoi region and Siberian Tomsk.
Sibneft’s core operations are mainly located in West Siberia’s Noyabrsk and Tomsk regions.
Ryazanov also said Gazprom was still committed to splitting Slavneft — a joint venture between Sibneft and BP’s Russian vehicle TNK-BP - despite earlier press reports that Gazprom might prefer to swap its half share in Slavneft against other assets of TNK-BP.
Ryazanov also said Gazprom was currently not discussing buying out YUKOS’s 20-percent stake in Sibneft because these shares were still frozen alongside other YUKOS’s assets as part of a tax evasion investigation.
YUKOS, formerly Russia’s top oil producer, was hit with billions of dollars of back tax claims in 2003, several months after having agreed to acquire Sibneft for $11bn.
The merger collapsed but YUKOS still owns a minority stake in Sibneft.
The election on Friday of two YUKOS’s men - oil production manager Yury Starodubtsev and refining manager Yury Khudyakov — to the board came as a surprise after years of unsuccessful attempts by YUKOS to have its director at Sibneft. — Reuters
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