The newspaper earlier reported that Roman Abramovich, the main shareholder of Sibneft, held talks on the sale of 46% of the company's shares with Royal Dutch/Shell, ChevronTexaco and Total.
"If Moscow maintains its position, Total will edge out ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil of the US, and Royal Dutch/Shell, the Anglo-Dutch energy group, in securing the second large corporate partnership in one of the most promising oil frontiers," the newspaper reported.
A source told the newspaper that the U.S. administration, having learned this, was extremely irritated.
According to the Financial Times source, the French company would like to purchase 25% plus one share of Sibneft. A banker told the paper that this block of shares may cost about $4 billion.
The talks are not in the final stage, the newspaper noted.
Sibneft refused to comment on this information. "We do not comment on market rumors," the press secretary of Sibneft, Alexei Firsov, told RIA Novosti. He recalled that similar information about sale of Sibneft shares to foreign companies had also appeared earlier.
Mr. Firsov added, "the most important thing now is to complete the offset on division of Yukos and Sibneft."
On October 3, 2003, the principal shareholders of Sibneft and Yukos announced the completion of the deal to merge the two companies. Yukos became the owner of 92% of the Sibneft shares, and the Sibneft shareholders owned 26.01% of the Yukos shares. Suspension of the Yukos-Sibneft merger was announced on November 28, and on December 16 the Sibneft shareholders announced that the companies would not merge.
