The economics ministry has proposed Nikolai Tokarev, general director of Russian state-owned oil company Zarubezhneft, as head of the oil transport monopoly, Vedomosti said.
The paper cited a government source as saying that the candidacy could be approved this week, and said the formal approval of shareholders would be required. The state holds 75% in the pipeline monopoly.
Former Transneft CEO Semyon Vainshtok, whose eight-year contract expired in mid-September, will head the state-run corporation overseeing the construction of venues and infrastructure for the Winter Olympics, which Russia's Black Sea resort city of Sochi will host in 2014.
Tokarev, 56, has been the head of Zarubezhneft since 2000, when he quit as Transneft's vice president. He has declined to comment on his potential appointment to Transneft, as has Transneft Vice President Sergei Grigoryev, the newspaper said. Tokarev earlier said reports on his nomination were not true.
Experts quoted by the daily said the company needed a diligent figure like Tokarev, with a previous background in security services, who could carry out ambitious company projects, in particular a multi-billion-dollar pipeline to carry hydrocarbons from vast East Siberian fields to Pacific Rim countries.
Vainshtok left the company on September 11, a day before President Vladimir Putin dismissed the prime minister and the Cabinet, an event that overshadowed reshuffles in the pipeline monopoly.
