SOURCE: KREMLIN.RU
like ExxonMobil, Total, and Aramco also have been interested in acquiring the Indian-based company. Igor Sechin flew to New Delhi to meet with Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to express interest in acquiring a stake in privatized Bharat Petroleum. The Indian government is looking to sell its entire 53 percent stake in BPCL. In consequence, Russia’s Rosneft would add to its portfolio a 25 percent stake in Indian fuel stations. It is the first time that a private energy company from outside
India will gain access to the country’s retail fuel market. A new owner will take over 11 percent of India’s total oil processing capacities. During a visit to India, Rosneft CEO signed a deal with state-owned Indian Oil Corp, India’s top refiner, that gave the latter an option to buy up to 15 million barrels of Urals crude in 2020. India has been diversifying the sources of its crude oil imports that come into the country’s energy market mainly from the Middle East.
19 February 2020
RUSSIA’S SHOIGU VISITS BELGRADE: WILL SERBIA FALL AFOUL OF THE U.S.? Serbia’s ties with Russia are the best in many decades, as evidenced by Sergei Shoigu’s recent trip to Belgrade in what was yet another visit of a senior Russian official to Serbia. On the meeting’s agenda might have been Serbia’s finalizing a deal to buy Russian-built Pantsir-S1 air defense systems. But Belgrade is pressing on to achieve the purchase despite the U.S. warning about sanctions. Moscow’s friendship with Serbia remained untarnished even in spite of a spying incident last autumn when Russia’s GRU military intelligence service recruited Serbian army officers as spies.
www.warsawinstitute.org
23
