Liam Denning, Columnist

Russia Plays Chess With Glencore, China -- and Saudi Arabia

Moscow seems to be thinking more about the long term than Riyadh.

September 8, 2017 at 5:37 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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When it comes to oil, Russia likes to keep its friends close, its frenemies closer and, as for its customers, it invites them to just move in.

CEFC China Energy Co., a closely held energy and finance conglomerate, is buying a stake of 14.16 percent in Rosneft PJSC for roughly $9 billion. The stake represents the majority of the 19.5 percent stake in Russia's national oil champion that was bought from the state only last December by a consortium consisting of Glencore Plc and Qatar's sovereign wealth fund.