Word: russianizing
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...Russian firms are stepping in where foreign companies find it harder to tread. Foremost among them is the giant state-controlled Gazprom, whose gas reserves were recently valued at $78 billion and which is actively pushing to become a big player in the oil market. It is merging with Russia's seventh largest oil company, state-owned Rosneft, and Alexei Miller, Gazprom's chief executive, has signaled his interest in another oil producer, Zarubezhneft. Most dramatically, Gazprom has emerged as the best-positioned candidate to acquire the company that forms the core of Yukos--a Siberia-based corporation called Yugansk...
There's a particular irony in the Russian-oil story because it was Khodorkovsky--now behind bars--who first demonstrated to the world just how viable Russian oil can be. Back in the 1990s, that wasn't self-evident. The collapse of the Soviet Union was accompanied by a slide in Russian oil production, from a peak of almost 11 million bbl. per day in 1987 to just 6 million in 1996. Yukos blazed the trail--and helped reverse the oil slump--by investing heavily in existing fields in Siberia, bringing in Western technology and dozens of American and other...
...also run into the difficulties foreign companies typically face in Russia, from a volatile economy to unreliable partners. The company's first foray into the Russian market, in 1997, ended badly after a firm in which it took a 10% stake went bankrupt. At the time, oil was near $10 per bbl., the Russian economy was sliding into crisis, and BP found its stake wasn't big enough to influence management of the company, called Sidanco. BP also ended up at loggerheads with other Russian shareholders at Sidanco, members of the private Alfa investment group headed by billionaire Mikhail Fridman...
...this month. "Whoever buys it will be buying an enormous set of lawsuits," warns Stuart E. Eizenstat, a former U.S. Under Secretary of State who is advising Yukos shareholder Menatep. But prospects seem grim. Says Menatep's Osborne: "Grinding remorselessly toward the breakup of Yukos seems to be the Russian government's position at the moment. I am less optimistic with every passing day." For the moment, that's a message the Russia-bound oil companies are choosing not to hear...
MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV, the Russian general who created the world's most widely distributed firearm, during a celebration of his 85th birthday...