The upper chamber's local self-government committee chairman Leonid Roketsky is sure that senators should raise the question.
Roketsky is sure that Surgutneftegaz actually stands behind the BFG.
"I very much hope it is Surgutneftegaz. For West Siberian oilmen the purchase of Yuganskeneftegaz by Surgutneftegaz would be a sign of supreme justice as regards the problem. This would resolve the financial problems of Yuganskneftegaz, as well as social, ethnic and moral ones," said Roketsky (he is the former governor of the oil-producing Tyumen region).
On the contrary, Sergei Ivanov, first deputy chairman of the Federation Council commission for interaction with the Audit Chamber, believes that the Federation Council should not officially interpellate on the BFG.
"Why should we make official interpellations?" he said.
According to Ivanov, there are government levers and fiscal bodies in place to look into the matter. "Not anybody can pay 1.5 billion dollars as the deposit. It means the sum is secured," he noted.
Chairman of the national monopolies commission Mikhail Odintsov thinks that "there are no legal grounds for interpellating. Only for curiosity's sake."
"I wonder what financial group the company is affiliated to and how can a big element of the Russian economy get into the hands of an unknown company, now on search for several days? I wonder who owns Yuganskneftegaz," Odintsov said.
Simultaneously, he stressed that no official signs for putting questions to a company are in existence. "Half of our economy is run by wholly unknown companies. Most of them are offshore. Given this approach, we'd be looking for them forever," Odintsov said.
Viktor Orlov, head of the natural resources and environmental protection committee of the Federation Council, noted: "I cannot imagine even four or five individuals agreeing on a big buy, which even Gazprom could have hardly afforded."
Simultaneously, Orlov noted that he is interested only in the company's capacity to work, its being a producer of oil with dozens of thousands of people behind it.
Orlov is sure that organizers of the auction and the relative fiscal bodies have the required information about the company and should bring it home to the public.
Galina Buslova, first deputy chairman of the Federation Council committee for financial markets and monetary circulation, said that she has "no questions to ask. If the company [Baikalfinancegroup] is competent and well off financially, it may do anything it wants. I wonder why there is so much fuss about it," she said.
