Oil majors Yukos and Sibneft tied the knot in
Russia's first mega-merger last month and have created what
will soon be the world's biggest oil company. At a stroke the
creation of YukosSibneft drew a clear map for the development
of Russia's oil sector, forcing the country's three largest
companies to ready themselves for battle over the remaining
oil and gas assets.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Roman Abramovich,
respectively the owners of Yukos and Sibneft, had more luck
with what was their second attempt to merge their companies
than with their first try. They had first attempted to create
Yuksi in the spring of 1998 when über-oligarch Boris
Berezovsky was still a major Sibneft shareholder but the deal
fell apart after they failed to agree on how to share
control....
