Following the company’s 2004 purchase of Yukos’s assets following a state-run auction related to the criminal proceedings against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Rosneft emerged as Russia’s largest oil producer and refiner. The company, formed in 1995 from Rosneftegaz, which was the successor to the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Oil and Gas, is state controlled (75 percent ownership), though Sberbank and private investors maintain minority stakes. A number of Russian oligarchs including Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska purchased large numbers of shares in the company’s 14 June 2006 initial public offering. Igor Sechin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, is the chairman. The company’s major fields are located in Siberia, southern and central Russia, Timan-Pechora, and the Russian Far East. In 2008, the company refined 985,000 barrels of oil per day and produced more than 2 million barrels of oil per day. It has a significant retail operation with more than 1,700 service stations and proprietary port facilities at Tuapse on the Black Sea, De-Kastri in Sakhalin, Nakhodka in Primorsky Krai, and Arkhangelsk. Rosneft also produces significant quantities of natural gas.
See also Lukoil.
Historical Dictionary of the Russian Federation. Robert A. Saunders and Vlad Strukov. 2010.