Thursday, December 27, 2012

Russia's largest oil producer, state-controlled OAO Rosneft, ROSN.RS -0.31%said Monday it has raised $16.8 billion in bank loans and plans to sign a trade-finance package with two international oil traders to finance the buyout of TNK-BP BP.LN -0.01%. Rosneft is acquiring TNK-BP, Russia's number three oil producer, from BP PLC and the AAR consortium of Soviet-born billionaires in deals worth $55 billion in cash and shares that will create the world's largest listed crude producer. Under the deal, agreed to in October, the AAR tycoons will get more than $28 billion when the deal closes in the first half of 2013. BP will hold a 19.8% stake in Rosneft as part of its deal to sell out of TNK-BP.
To finance the purchase of BP's 50% stake in TNK-BP, Rosneft said it obtained a five-year loan of $4.1 billion and a two-year $12.7 billion loan from a group of international banks. Under the agreement, Rosneft said it plans to sign contracts to supply up to 67 million metric tons of crude oil in total for a period of five years, subject to a prepayment. Rosneft would use future oil exports as collateral for the trade financing from the traders. The supplies are expected to commence in 2013, the company said, but didn't provide any financial details of the deal.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why on Earth would the UK become like either Norway or Switzerland? You are having a laugh are you not?

In the UK, we have political corruption rife through the system, corruption through the banking system and endemic corruption and incompetence in the executive.

No policies which benefit the majority of the population and a political system which is so far from either Switzerland and Norway as it's possible to be in a democracy. We are mainly ruled by over-educated, one-way thinking, selfish, ignorant peacocks who have their snouts in the trough.

To me, that stinks of the sort of corruption that finger-pointing politicians have pointed out occurs in 3rd world dictatorships. It appears that Britain just hides it better.

In a nutshell, incompetency and corruption together with a very inadequate system of government make already far more like North Korea than Switzerland. Nationalism and fear hold North Korea together. Hang onto your hat, that's where the UK is headed too.

Anonymous said...

According to the EU, Norway has had to impose more than 5,000 EU legal acts since 1992. Yet Britain, over the same period, had to apply more than 3,000 every year. And most of the Norwegian directives are technical and trivial: the order in which to list ingredients on a ketchup bottle, the font size on a packet of chewing gum and the like. Implementing these 5,000 directives has required fewer than 100 pieces of primary legislation in the Stortinget.

Anonymous said...

Are you aware that the EU now taxes the meager interest on our savings at 30%. Nobody ever voted for that. I don't want my savings subsidising those wasters in Brussels and if I had any savings I would defintely put them in a tax haven."

You are part of the set of problems that we have in the UK right now, Leonore. Unwilling and unwanting to pay tax - let others suffer because of it.

No thanks - The EU has given us decent human rights and trade for the last 40 years.

It's not perfect, but it's a damn sight better than neo-Con economics that has seen in the UK and US 90% of the wealth in those countries given to the 30% and 20% of those populations respectively.

I don't want to live in Victorian Britain, where the poor are blamed for being poor, there are no human rights and the rich do not contribute to society - that is where the Tories are taking us. The EU is a stop to that, thanks.

Anonymous said...

I think to have a referendum, kind of about nothing very much in particular, ..."

I personally feel quite sorry for Nick Clegg and the way he's been demonised, but dismissing the concerns of millions of voters as a non-issue is arrogant and anti-democratic.

A referendum about whether to leave the EU when the latest independent polls show a clear majority want to leave is hardly 'kind of about nothing very much in particular'.

Of course, he has no comment on the impact of immigration and our apparent lack of control over it while we remain in the EU.

And I'm a bit sick of all the hints that the EU is a source of peace since WW2 and the only thing preventing Europe from sliding into a blood bath when this is simply not borne out by any sensible interpretation of history.

Anonymous said...

We should do 1 of 2 things either fix teh democratic defficit in Europe so that the institutions of the EU are held in some way accountable directly to the public or leave the EU. The EU has a major structural problem not to fix it yet to continue to abide by law set by this body is a massive erosion of the representative model that holds European nations together.

Anonymous said...

The EU is going to change massively over the next 2 or 3 years, and Britain's position will too.

Having a referendum to decide whether we are in or out at this stage is difficult because the future of the EU is at it's most uncertain.

For those who are strongly anti-EU, think of it this way: Imagine we held a referendum now, and people voted to stay in because they were scared of the short-term negative economic impact of leaving during a recession. But then in a few years, the EU became an even worse fit for the UK. We can't exactly hold a new referendum every few years.

Conversely, imagine that in a few years, the EU has found a better way of operating with the core eurozone countries in the centre, and the other countries including the UK in a looser arrangement that gives us access to the single market and influence over future decisions, but with less waste and bureaucracy.

All in all, it makes sense to wait a couple of years until there is a major new treaty that changes the nature of the EU, then hold a referendum with the knowledge of what we are actually voting about.

Anonymous said...

Nick Clegg's warning to David Cameron: Britain must stay in Europe" otherwise when cleggy won't get his cushy eu commissioner's job when the British electorate kick him out. Nor will cast iron dave

"exercise extraordinary leadership" is eu speak for giving up more powers to brussles

"Clegg insists Britain should focus on helping to fight the crisis in the eurozone" by throwing more Britsh taxpayers money at it while here at home public services are cut

"The prime minister would demand the repatriation of some powers as the price of British support". Didn't His Toneyness give up some of our rebate as a price for (non-existent) reform of the CAP?

"Northern creditor countries have to admit to their own taxpayers that they are on the hook to help the weaker economies of the south" I don't think Frau Merkel wants to (or can) do that somehow

"The governments in southern Europe need to admit to their voters that they will be subject to a level of discipline and scrutiny in their economic policy from Brussels and from Berlin which is much more stringent than it was before" and the people thrown out of work because these countries can't devalue their currency, are to jolly well stop setting light to things and making such a fuss!

Clegg lives in a world of fantasy, utterly divorced from reality

Anonymous said...

The British are solely concerned about their economic interests, nothing else.