Russia

Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom won the rights to a giant Siberian gas field destined to supply the fast-growing markets of China, a spokesman for the sale organiser said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Victory at the auction will allow Gazprom to extract the field's 2 trillion cubic metres of reserves, enough to supply the world for eight months, and forge deeper ties with China, where the Russian energy giant plans to start exporting gas in 2015.

Rosneft is set to take on Gazprom when Russia puts the Kovykta gas field on the block on Tuesday as the country's top crude producer aims to muscle in on the gas export monopoly's plans to supply China. Gazprom and state holding firm Rosneftegaz have been allowed to bid for the right to develop the Kovykta field, which is located near Lake Baikal and has reserves of 2 trillion cubic metres. That's enough to meet world demand for eight months.

The sale of the licence holder of the giant Kovykta gas field, majority-owned by Russia's TNK-BP, has been postponed for two weeks and will be held on March 1, the sale administrator said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. RUSIA Petroleum was declared insolvent by a regional court in October after TNK-BP, owned by British major BP and a quartet of Russia-connected billionaires, filed a petition to initiate bankruptcy proceedings. Initially the auction was mooted for Feb. 15 with a starting price of 15.083 billion roubles.

A Russian judge has convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed Yukos oil tycoon, and his former business partner, Platon Lebedev, of embezzlement and money laundering in a politically-charged trial that could keep the Kremlin foes in jail for six more years, the Financial Times reported today. Khodorkovsky’s lead defense lawyer immediately said his defense team would appeal, decrying the decision as prefabricated and claiming pressure had clearly been applied on the judge.

A Moscow court Tuesday declared the bankruptcy of a leading commercial bank that is run by a man whom the Russian media once identified as being "the cashier to the Kremlin," Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported on an Agence France-Presse story. The bankruptcy of International Industrial Bank, or Mezhprombank, controlled by Russian tycoon Sergei Pugachev, came less than two months after its operating license was suspended by the Russian Central Bank.

The Russian central bank on Tuesday said it was canceling the license of a leading commercial bank for the first time since the financial crisis broke in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported on an Agence France-Presse story. The International Industrial Bank, controlled by Russian tycoon Sergei Pugachev, was losing its license for violating a string of regulations, the Russian Central Bank said in a statement on its website. The IIB had failed to report accurate data on its accounts and had been unable to satisfy its obligations towards creditors, the bank said.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich may take legal action against the Government over its decision to make subordinated bondholders in Irish Nationwide (INBS) pay part of the bill for dealing with the building society’s huge property losses, The Irish Times reported. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said that he expected bondholders in INBS and nationalised lender Anglo Irish Bank to make “a significant contribution” towards meeting the cost of a bill of up to €40 billion for cleaning up their years of reckless lending.

Two decades after embarking on perhaps the most dramatic – and chaotic – privatisation drive in history, Russia is planning to sell stakes in major state companies to help balance its budget and restructure its economy, reversing a recent policy of boosting Kremlin control over big business, The Irish Times reported.

Sea Launch Co LLC, a provider of commercial satellite launches, received court approval for its reorganization and will emerge from bankruptcy under Russian ownership, according to court documents filed on Friday, Reuters reported. Sea Launch will exit bankruptcy with a $200-million line of credit and $155 million in new equity investment by Energia Overseas, a Russian company. Energia will end up with 95 percent of the company.

Russian state-owned bank Sberbank is seeking a seat on the board of failed Kazakh bank BTA, the head of Kazakhstan's national welfare fund, Kairat Kelimbetov, said on Friday. "The talks are only with Sberbank," Kelimbetov, who also has a seat on Sberbank's supervisory board, told Reuters. "We are formulating a plan for the next 2-3 years." The welfare fund owns BTA. Sberbank has been in talks to take over the bankrupt Kazakh lender, one of the largest in the oil rich central Asian state. If it takes a board seat it would likely signal the takeover is ready to proceed.