How about this for an oil deal: Buy a state oil company for $615 million, get rid of the debts through a shady scheme and then resell it for $2.7 billion. Such a deal is just more proof that the best deals are made with the state: Rompetrol, the private-owned Romanian oil company and its main asset, a refinery at the Black Sea coast, just a few miles from a U.S. military base wasn't sold to Shell, Exxon Mobile or Chevron. Rather, the buyer is the state oil company of Kazakhstan, KazMunayGaz , who bought 75% of Rompetrol on August 24.
"Better the Kazakhs than the Russians" is what US and EU experts are telling the Romanians. But is the Kazakh "president for life", Nursultan Nazarbaev, really an alternative to Putin?
Dinu Patriciu, the former owner of Rompetrol and now the richest Romanian alive, claims he is building an alternative route to Russian oil. Such a "Nabucco of oil", as the EU gas pipeline project is referred to that is due to bring Caspian gas through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the European markets is what Patriciu is envisioning. The problem with this rosy view is that the Kazakh oil fields at Tengiz & Atyrau are connected to a Russian pipeline that goes straight to the Russian harbor Novorossiisk at the Black Sea, where 90% of all Russian oil exports are shipped from.
More so, the alleged "alternative to Russia" is very committed to the Russian pipeline. When he signed a deal with Vladimir Putin for 17 million tons of oil to be pumped to Novorossiisk for another planned pipeline from Bulgaria to Greece, Nazarbaev said:
"Kazakhstan is absolutely committed to sending the most part, if not all, of its hydrocarbons across the Russian territory."
For the Kazakhs, the acquisition of Rompetrol is finally getting them on European soil, after similar deals with the Czech Republic, Latvia and Lithuania failed. Uzakbay Karablin, the president of KazMunayGaz confirmed this in a statement:
"The deal provides us with a footprint in several important downstream markets in Europe, including France, Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria, as well as the ability to utilize Rompetrol as a platform for future expansion. The company will focus its activities in the high-growth markets of the Black Sea, Balkans and Mediterranean regions. It effectively builds an energy bridge between the oil resources of Kazakhstan and the growing demand for refined products in Central, Eastern and Western Europe."
For the Romanians, especially their increasingly isolated, pro-American president Traian Basescu, the sudden wealth of a local "oligarch", influential party leader and media owner sets the grounds for even more political trouble. The former Rompetrol boss was the very reason for Basescu's disagreements with his Premier, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, a long-time friend and apprentice of Patriciu. After he sold the company, Patriciu claimed Gazprom was also interested in purchasing Rompetrol, but the deal couldn't be made because of "political reasons". The Kazakhs seem to be the perfect solution: not quite Russians, but close enough, with pockets deep enough to make them eager to buy at any price. The Kazakhs even went so far as to allow Patriciu to keep his CEO seat. For Patriciu, on trial for money laundry and insider trading related to the privatizing of the very same Rompetrol he just sold, this might be the ticket to heaven. A prosecutor-free heaven.
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Aug 29th, 2007
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