Independent Oil and Gas Company presents its position on Bashneft privatization to Russian Ministry of Economy

As the Kommersant has got to know, in late April, the Independent Oil and Gas Company (NNK) of the former head of Rosneft Eduard Khudainatov presented a response to criticism of the Bashneft’s president Alexander Korsik about possible participation of NNK in the privatization of the state-owned company to the Russian Economy Ministry. NNK says that it is not going to attract funds of state banks for the transaction and also considers it possible to organize "effective swap deliveries" of Bashkir oil to the Far East. Bashneft is still guided by the position of the Ministry of Energy, which found the NNK’s ideas impractical, the Ministry of Economy promises to study the proposal of Mr. Khudainatov.

NNK of Eduard Khudainatov plans to attract external funding to purchase the government stake of Bashneft (50.08% of the share capital belong to the Federal Property Management Agency), NNK reported to the head of the Ministry of Economy Alexei Ulyukayev. Prior to this, the Ministry asked the company to consider the critical position of the Bashneft’s president Alexander Korsik regarding the participation of NNK in the privatization of the state-owned company. At the end of March, NNK offered to Vladimir Putin to make the requirements for participants of the privatization in the form of guaranteed supply and processing of oil in the Far East (in fact, it dramatically narrowed the list of possible contenders: only NNK and Rosneft have oil refineries in the region). The idea wasn’t supported by the leadership of Bashneft and the Ministry of Energy. So, on April 19, Mr. Korsik reported in a letter to Federal Property Management Agency, that the condition of NNK was ineffective and "would violate the law, and could be directly contrary to the terms to prevent the participation of state banks and major oil and gas state-owned companies’ funds in the privatization of Bashneft.