Liam Denning, Columnist

Rosneft Puts the 'Private' in Privatization

Its maneuvers will actually put more Russian oil under Kremlin control.

October 13, 2016 at 4:58 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

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Self-actualization is the process of realizing one's full potential. Self-privatization is how Rosneft helps the Kremlin pay its bills.

Rosneft, the London-listed Russian oil champion roughly 70-percent owned by the state, is on a privatization binge -- albeit one with peculiar characteristics. It announced on Thursday it had paid about $5.2 billion for a majority stake in Bashneft, a fellow Russian oil and gas company, previously owned by the government. Meanwhile, CEO Igor Sechin has been pitching close ally President Vladimir Putin about the government's plan to privatize a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft, worth roughly $11.7 billion at current prices.