- Vlad and the Oil Patch Boyz:
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- Vlad Putin is defending the detention of Mikhail Khodorkovsky
of Yukos oil. The more or less "official" version of the story
is at the BBC site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3239075.stm but
the real story comes to us from an oil industry insider with impeccable
credentials who says the real lowdown is this:
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- You need to keep me as a source undisclosed.
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- The real story on Yukos and its thrown out 'owners',
started with Putin's visit 3 weeks ago.
- The deal goes like this: Russia wants 2 things: better
management of and investment in their #1 export earner: oil & gas,
and it wants economic integration with the EMU. To that end, while US
biz was head-over-heels investing billions in China since '95, who do you
think invested any money in Yeltsin-now-Putin's corrupt Russia? (hint:
it wasn't us)
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- Now, they've got something to sell, and to the Chinese,
too. But China could flood them with dollars, something of increasingly
dubious value. Besides, the Europeans want to pay in Euros (& they
were there when the going was really rough).
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- Enter Exxon Mobile, which knows a thing about operating
O&G companies, knows how much current and future potential there is
in Russia, knows how much danger there is in the mideast....and wants to
buy a part (as in "let's partner, partner").
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- Exxon Mobile brings a lot to the table for the Russians.
Two problems: selling our oil in dollars (Russia and Europe vehemently
opposed...China would love it), and the current 'ownership' of Yukos...an
obstinate bunch of slick 'criminals' who rigged the original asset auction
(true factoid) to create 'Yukos' in the first place.
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- So, what to do to make all this legal, such that Exxon
Mobile can transact with the normal probity of corporate governance and
corporate board fiduciary responsibility (a hot issue now with money managers
and lawsuit hungry attys)?
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- Simple: arrest the current owner on stuff he actually
did, but was winked at, at the time....and fly over and tell the US president
his largest oil company can indeed have a piece of the action. After all,
he is an ex-oil guy. The cost: simple: we sell it (the oil, that is) in
Euros.
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- http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm
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