RUSSIA - Viktor Khristenko.

An outspoken liberal aged 48, Khristenko in March 2004 was made minister of industry and energy. Previously he was a deputy PM in charge of the energy sector and of oil/gas exports as well as a member of Gazprom's board.

Under Khristenko is Sergei Oganesyan, whom President Putin appointed March 2004 as head of the Federal Energy Agency, in charge of the petroleum sector. Oganesyan previously was a Rosneft vice president for foreign relations. Khristenko's predecessor as minister of energy, Igor Yusufov, was in March 2004 made Russia's representative on the Russian-Azeri Inter-Governmental Commission on Azerbaijan's crude oil transit affairs.

In May 2004, Khristenko confirmed a 2003 decision by the Natural Resources Ministry to re-tender two licences covering blocks in the Sakhalin-III area affecting ExxonMobil and its partners. He said: "There are no grounds for giving ExxonMobil the licences under PSA conditions or the usual tax regime", as the US major had made slow progress at Sakhalin-III and failed to secure gas export sales contracts for Sakhalin-I.

Khristenko meets frequently with his US counterparts and their discussions centre on development of giant oil and gas fields in the far north for export to the American market. But in late May 2004, Khristenko indicated that the proposed 2-3m b/d crude oil terminal at Murmansk for the US market was not a high priority for Moscow.

Khristenko in 2000 rejected a proposal for Rosneft, Onako and SlavNeft to be merged into a state company to be formed under the name of GosNeft. He said Russia did not need a state oil company and that a competitive market was a more efficient solution to providing fuel to the nation's consumers. The merger proposal had been backed in 1999 by then energy minister Viktor Kalyuzhny, who later bacame a special envoy of the Foreign Ministry for the Caspian region.

The state's 85% equity in Onako was in September 2000 sold to TNK for $1.8 bn. Khristenko then said the state should sell its stakes in Rosneft and SlavNeft when their stock value rose (see Vol. 59, No. 14).

Now Khristenko favours a expansion of Rosneft, which in late 2004 got Yukos' biggest oil producer, YuganskNefteGaz. Khristenko in 2001 introduced a tougher regime on tariffs and taxes for oil exports. He made progress in his understanding of the energy sector. He has the benefit of not being too closely connected to particular commercial interest groups.