BEIJING, November 9 (RIA Novosti) — It would be logical to include the Russian state-owned company Bashneft in the privatization plan, as it would allow the company to work in market conditions, and the state could benefit from it, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Sunday.
"If we proceed from the common logic, we have a privatization plan for all companies, so it would be logical to include Bashneft in the privatization plan — and the state would receive income, and the company could work in market conditions," Novak told journalists on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing.
According to Novak, Bashneft is not a major player on the Russian market – its production amounts to three percent of the total.
Novak has also stated that he was unaware if Bashneft was preparing to include its shares in the privatization plan.
On November 8, Russia's Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said that Bashneft could be put up for privatization to decrease the government's presence in the energy market sector of the country's economy. Ulyukayev added he was unaware of any possible private buyers willing to purchase Bashneft.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office moved to retake the controlling package of state-run Bashneft shares after the regional authority allegedly put the oil company up for privatization without consulting the federal government in Moscow. This resulted in Bashneft being purchased by AFK Sistema in a series of acquisition deals, with every one of them deemed unlawful by the federal prosecutors.
On October 30, the Russian court of Arbitration seized 71.6 percent of the company's shares from AFK Sistema and handed them over to the government.
