My Russian friend

While Putin is in Hannover meeting with Schroeder and signing trade treaties a new Yukos affair is rearing it's head in Moscow.
It was announced a couple of days ago that TNK-BP owed 1 billion US$ in back taxes from 2001, since TNK-BP didn't exist in 2001 these demands are probably on either slavneft or TNK prior to the merger with BP. Might this be another Yukos affair? Is the Kremlin out to consolidate the Russian oil market? This also raises the question on how much control Putin has in these questions. The handling of the Yukos affair left much to be desired when it came to justice and fairness and the company, when sold, was briskly picked up by government agencies.

Problem with TNK-BP is just BP, if Kremlin decides to go after this company then BP as a 50% shareholder and a west company will probably leave investments in Russia since the risk of nationalization seems to be large, other western companies might hesitate before investing in Russia, hence Kremlin is shooting themselves in the foot. Putin needs to go back to Kremlin and see what is going on before the Russian economy collapses.

Interesting reading about the Russian Oil industry

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood