ENERGO: “Oil Czar” Sechin said to be behind Kremlin’s Fortum/Uniper asset grab

The influential head of Russia’s largest crude oil producer Rosneft, Igor “Oil Czar” Sechin, could be behind the most recent seizure of the assets of German Uniper and Finnish Fortum, The Bell suggests.

As covered by bne IntelliNews, President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree on subjecting foreign assets to mandatory “temporary management” in case of the seizure of any other private or public assets by the US or their allies, with the assets of Finnish and German energy majors Fortum and Uniper being the first to be concerned.

On the very first day of the introduction of the “external management”, state property agency Rosimushchestvo replaced the heads of the Russian subsidiaries of both companies with managers working for Igor Sechin: Fortum Russia is now headed by Vyacheslav Kozhevnikov, deputy chief engineer of Bashneft regional oil major (owned by Rosneft), and Unipro Russia (a subsidiary of Uniper) is helmed by Vasily Nikonov, head of Rosneft's own energy department.

The Bell suggests that the real beneficiary of "external management" of the Fortum and Uniper assets will be the state utilities and energy company Inter RAO, which together with Rosneft is owned by the state holding Rosneftegaz controlled by Sechin.