Thanks to Putin, China takes Tatarstan's oil
The Siburom group has acquired the oil giant Taif. The main shareholders are the Russian billionaire Leonid Mikhelson and the oligarch Gennadiy Timchenko, one of Putin's men. Siburom's shares are not freely put on the market, but offered to privileged partners: several Chinese offshore companies. Earnings are expected to double, "new jobs" and "new income" for the republic under the Ural Mountains.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - The oil giant Taif has been acquired by the Siburom group, in a mind-boggling deal that involves the Russian state authorities, those of the Republic of Tatarstan and Chinese investors.
News released yesterday was a sensation in the sector. Taif was launched in 1995, and the acronym indicates the union of local and American investors (Tataro-Amerikanskye Investitsii i Finansy). For many years the group had remained the symbol of the independence of the Tatar republic, located near the Ural Mountains, which did business with the whole world without passing through Moscow.
The main beneficiary of the colossal sale deal is the first president of Tatarstan, Mintimer Šaymiev, since 2010 "adviser" to the current president, Rustam Minnikhanov. Šaymiev (right in the photo) had arranged his kinship in the top roles of the Taif, along with relatives of the republic's main oligarch families.
With the purchase of the oil company, Siburom becomes the main player on the Russian market in the processing of oil and gas, even if we have to wait for the evaluation of the Russian agency against monopolies, which should not object to the deal.
Siburom's main shareholder is the Russian billionaire Leonid Mikhelson, and the second (with 17%) another oligarch, Gennadi Timčenko, one of Putin's men who ended up under Western sanctions since 2014. The latter has given up most of his owned by Vladimir Putin's son-in-law, Nikolai Shaamalov, so that the Russian president is able to control colossal deals such as the one concluded in the land of the Tatars.
The Taif executives received in return 15% of the shares of the newly sold group, and former president Šaymiev himself said he was enthusiastic about the deal, convinced that "the group's earnings will be doubled, and for us this means new jobs. of work and new revenue for the republican budget”.
The problem is that Siburom's shares are not freely marketed, as promised for several years, but are offered to privileged partners. The last director of Siburom who had tried to market the shares of the group, Jakov Goldovskij, was arrested in 2002, at the dawn of the Putinian "vertical" era.
The main buyers of the oil shares are actually several Chinese offshore companies, of which no information is disclosed either in the press or through financial channels. In this way, China also takes Russian oil, without officially appearing to do so, after having handsomely rewarded the Russian oligarchs and the leaders of local power.
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17/12/2021 09:56
29/10/2008
