The logo of Rosneft, Russia's Largest Oil Company

Rosneft is Russia’s largest oil company.

In the Soviet era, the government’s Ministry of Oil and Gas owned assets now held by Rosneft. With the collapse of Communism, Ministry assets were assigned to Rosneftegaz. In 1993, Rosneft was established, and Rosneftegaz assigned assets to Rosneft. Rosneft has been partially privatized.

The Company is included in the list of strategic companies and organizations of Russia. Company’s largest shareholder (50.00000001% of the equity) is JSC ROSNEFTEGAZ, fully owned by the Russian Government, while BP holds 19.75% of shares, QHG Shares Pte. Ltd. holds 19.5% of shares, one share belongs to the state represented by Federal Agency for State Property Management, whereas the remaining shares are free floating (see Shareholding Structure).

Link.

The privately prepared, recently released Dossier concerning Donald Trump and his relationship with the Russian Government and Russian business interests contains allegations about promises of equity in Rosneft in return for lifting sanctions that the United States had imposed upon Russia in reaction to Russian adventurism in Ukraine.

From Page 30 of the Dossier:

Summary - Close associate of SECHIN confirms his secret meeting in Mosco\v with Carter PAGE in July - Substance included offer of large stake in Rosneft in return for lifting sanctions on Russia. PAGE confirms this is TRUMP's intention [….] Detail 1. Speaking to a trusted compatriot in mid October 2016, a close associate of Rosneft President and PUTIN ally Igor' SECHJN elaborated on the reported secret meeting benveen the latter and Carter PAGE, of US Republican presidential candidate's foreign policy team, in Moscow in July 2016. The secret meeting had been confirmed to him/her by a senior member of SECHIN's staff, in addition to by the Rosneft President himself. It took place on either 7 or 8 July, the same day or the one after Carter PAGE made a public speech to the Higher Economic School in Moscow. 2. In terms of the substance of their discussion, SECHIN's associate said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE/TRUMP's associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.

Yesterday, Reuters published an interesting article concerning Rosneft: How Russia sold its oil jewel: without saying who bought it.

Among the points of the article:

More than a month after Russia announced one of its biggest privatizations since the 1990s, selling a 19.5 percent stake in its giant oil company Rosneft, it still isn't possible to determine from public records the full identities of those who bought it. The stake was sold for 10.2 billion euros to a Singapore investment vehicle that Rosneft said was a 50/50 joint venture between Qatar and the Swiss oil trading firm Glencore.

[I]mportant facts about the deal either have not been disclosed, cannot be determined solely from public records, or appear to contradict the straightforward official account of the stake being split 50/50 by Glencore and the Qataris. For one: Glencore contributed only 300 million euros of equity to the deal, less than 3 percent of the purchase price, which it said in a statement on Dec. 10 had bought it an "indirect equity interest" limited to just 0.54 percent of Rosneft. In addition, public records show the ownership structure of the stake ultimately includes a Cayman Islands company whose beneficial owners cannot be traced.

Rosneft declined to respond to questions posed by Reuters, including a request for comment on how ownership of the 19.5 percent stake was divided, information about the identity of the Cayman Islands buyer, or details of the source of any undisclosed sources of funds.

There is much more detail in the article, including the use of shell companies owned in turn by other shell companies. Such transactional structures are informally called Matryoshkas, after the nesting wooden dolls that are a Russian folk art.

I do not want to come across as a conspiracy theorist, but I found both the 19.5% equity stake, and the opaque transactional structure, interesting in light of the contents of Page 30 of the Dossier.