Selling more silver
Needing cash, the Kremlin is willing to sell a stake in Bashneft and maybe even Rosneft
A combination of sanctions and a low appetite for Russian risk will make the latest privatisation programme, including a majority stake in oil-producer Bashneft, a hard sell – but the Kremlin is betting strategic buyers will swoop in to buy energy assets at bargain prices. Russia’s privatisation track record is hardly studded with glory. Ordinary Russians are still furious that a handful of sharp operators ended up with the Soviet Union’s corporate gems through the flawed vouchers-for-shares schemes of the 1990s. So-called “people’s IPOs” of oil-producer Rosneft and lender VTB a decade later were also unpopular – share prices sank following the initial listings. This time around the sale won
Also in this section
18 February 2026
The global gas industry is no longer on the backfoot, hesitantly justifying the value of its product, but has greater confidence in gas remaining a core part of the global energy mix for decades
18 February 2026
With marketable supply unlikely to grow significantly and limited scope for pipeline imports, Brazil is expected to continue relying on LNG to cover supply shortfalls, Ieda Gomes, senior adviser of Brazilian thinktank FGV Energia,
tells Petroleum Economist
17 February 2026
The 25th WPC Energy Congress, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 26–30 April 2026, will bring together leaders from the political, industrial, financial and technology sectors under the unifying theme “Pathways to an Energy Future for All”
17 February 2026
Siemens Energy has been active in the Kingdom for nearly a century, evolving over that time from a project-based foreign supplier to a locally operating multi-national company with its own domestic supply chain and workforce
