MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian state oil company Rosneft was closing in on control of privately-held TNK-BP (TNBP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday, sending its powerful boss to London for talks with 50 percent shareholder BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) after the tycoons who own the other half agreed to sell.

Industry and financial sources in London, Moscow and elsewhere painted a picture of a potential three-way deal that could emerge over the coming weeks.

MOSCOW, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Russian state-owned oil company
Rosneft was closing in on control of TNK-BP on
Wednesday, sending its powerful CEO to London for talks after
the four billionaires who own half the company agreed to sell
their stake.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Rosneft
will pay the tycoons’ AAR consortium $28 billion in a
deal that could open the way for the holder of the other half of
the company, British company BP, to pursue a strategic
alliance with Rosneft.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft was closing in on control of TNK-BP (TNBP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) on Wednesday, sending its powerful CEO to London for talks after the four billionaires who own half the company agreed to sell their stake.

According to source familiar with the matter, Rosneft (ROSN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will pay the tycoons’ AAR consortium $28 billion in a deal that could open the way for the holder of the other half of the company, British company BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), to pursue a strategic alliance with Rosneft.

MOSCOW, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Bidding will open this week for
BP’s half of Russian oil company TNK-BP, with
state oil major Rosneft tipped as the likely buyer of
the British oil major’s stake in the fraught but lucrative joint
venture.

BP, whose chief executive Bob Dudley is due in Moscow on
Monday for a meeting of foreign investors with Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev, has booked $19 billion in dividends from its
original investment of $7 billion in 2003.

MOSCOW/LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – A battle between
warehouses for aluminium that has propelled costs to secure
metal to record highs, despite a glut, is raising tensions
between producers and consumers in annual supply contract
negotiations that started this week.

Spot market premiums have soared as vast amounts of
aluminium are stuck in warehouses owned by big banks and trading
houses, with millions of tonnes locked away in financing deals
and millions more clogging up a system that causes months-long
delays to get metal out.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia tightened its oversight on Tuesday of “strategic” domestic companies operating abroad, such as Gazprom, requiring them to seek approval to disclose information to foreign regulators, alter contracts or sell property abroad.

The move follows the state-controlled gas export monopoly Gazprom’s warning to the European Commission that an EU investigation of its business in Europe affected the interests of a strategic Russian company.

MOSCOW, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Russia’s Gazprom,
which has borne the brunt of weak demand in Europe and Russia,
said it was suspending purchases of gas as of Monday from
non-Gazprom producers, forcing them to share the pain of output
cuts and ease a mounting supply glut.

“Today the gas market in Russia has an excess of resources
over demand. In this situation we are looking at cuts to gas
intake from independent producers,” Gazprom’s deputy head of
marketing and liquids processing, Alexander Mikheyev, told a
conference call on Monday.

MOSCOW, July 27 (Reuters) – Russia’s third-largest oil
producer TNK-BP International said on Friday its
second-quarter net profit slumped to $808 million from $2.2
billion a year ago on the back of lower crude prices and higher
taxes.

The company, half-owned by British major BP, said
Russian Urals crude oil prices declined 7 percent during the
period, while it had to pay a higher export tax, an extra $14
per barrel, due to a time lag in taxation.

MOSCOW, July 20 (Reuters) – Russian state oil firm Rosneft
may hire the former head of mergers and acquisitions
at TNK-BP, boosting its capacity to put together a
possible bid for the Anglo-Russian oil firm as its feuding
co-owners, BP and a group of Soviet-born tycoons, try to
dissolve their partnership.

Sources familiar with the matter said Krzysztof Zielicki, a
former BP vice president who served as head of M&A at
TNK-BP until a few weeks ago, could join Rosneft in the latest
in a string of hires from TNK-BP and the British major.

MOSCOW, July 17 (Reuters) – Russia has no grounds to ban
grain exports this year, a senior government official said on
Tuesday as a top analyst said drought damage and low stocks
could slash Russian wheat exports to just 10 million tonnes.

A newly formed commission on food security is due to meet on
Wednesday under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Arkady
Dvorkovich, in charge of industry and commodity producers in the
new government of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.