Own in Doha – Newspaper Kommersant No. 42 (7487) dated 03/14/2023

As it became known to Kommersant, the chairman of the board of directors of Rosneft and the former top manager of Qatar Energy, Tayeb Belmakhdi, who headed the board of directors of the oil company last summer, may leave his post. This decision was made by Mr. Belmakhdi himself, the motives and candidacy of the new head of the council are unknown. Taieb Belmahdi replaced former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in this status chair, who, after five years of work, had to leave against the backdrop of Western sanctions against the Russian Federation due to military operations in Ukraine. At the same time, citizens of the EU, Switzerland, Great Britain and the United States, including representatives of the largest foreign shareholder BP, left the board of directors.

The chairman of the board of directors of Rosneft, an independent director, Tayeb Belmakhdi, may leave this post, sources told Kommersant. According to one of Kommersant’s interlocutors, Mr. Belmakhdi, who headed the board of directors of the oil company in June 2022, decided to leave the board after the expiration of his term in June “of his own free will.” Taieb Belmahdi was born in 1950, he is a former top manager of Qatar Energy and an expert in the oil and gas industry. Rosneft declined to comment.

The board of directors of Rosneft includes 11 people. The largest foreign shareholders of Rosneft are BP (19.5% of shares) and QIA (Qatari sovereign investment fund, 18.46%). After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine and the Western sanctions imposed as a result of them against the Russian Federation, the board of directors of Rosneft began to leave the Europeans. So, back in February 2022, BP announced its decision to withdraw from the capital of Rosneft and recalled its representatives on the board of directors of the oil company — the head of the British company, Bernard Looney, and its former head, Robert Dudley. However, over the past year, BP has not sold its stake in Rosneft and still remains the largest foreign shareholder of the oil company.

After the blocking EU sanctions against Rosneft came into force in May 2022, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Nord Stream 2 AG CEO Matthias Warnig left its board of directors. Mr. Schroeder has been heading the board of directors of Rosneft since 2017. Also in June, Hans-Jörg Rudloff, chairman of the board of Marcuard Holding, who was an independent director, was not re-elected to the new board. Despite Western sanctions, Qatari QIA representatives retained their seats on the oil company’s board of directors.

In June last year, the board of directors of Rosneft was replenished by the head of Gazprombank Andrey Akimov, the rector of the St. Petersburg Mining University Vladimir Litvinenko, the director of the Moscow School of Economics of Moscow State University Alexander Nekipelov, the head of the Philippine trading company Oil & Petroleum Holding International Resources (OPHIR) Pedro Aquino Jr., Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Uss and Taieb Belmakhdi.

Rosneft will nominate a new candidate for the board of directors instead of Taieb Belmakhdi, but so far Kommersant’s interlocutors do not know who it will be. The position of the head of the board of directors of Rosneft was traditionally considered extremely high-status – before Mr. Schroeder, it was held at that time by the assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, Andrei Belousov, now First Deputy Prime Minister. The head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, now holds the post of deputy chairman of the board of directors.

The list of candidates, according to the law on joint-stock companies, must be formed no later than 30 days before the date of the general meeting of shareholders, says Elena Gladysheva, managing partner of the RI-consulting law office. Candidate proposals are submitted by shareholders who own at least 2% of the company’s voting shares. As a general rule, the lawyer explains, the chairman of the board of directors is elected by the members of the board of directors from among them, while the board has the right to re-elect its chairman at any time. The head of the board of directors, adds Elena Gladysheva, organizes its work, convenes meetings, organizes the keeping of minutes at meetings, unless otherwise provided by the company’s charter.

Dmitry Kozlov