Russia's top oil firm could be bought by rival: report

MOSCOW (AFP) - Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil producer, could be sold to Kremlin-friendly billionaire Oleg Deripaska's Basic Elements, an official close to the company was quoted as saying yesterday.

"We are delighted that Basic Elements will become the new owner of Rosneft," Mikhail Shishkanov, head of Russia's Binbank told the Interfax news agency.

He said Rosneft's management was relinquishing its stake to investors and carrying out "negotiations on the sale of the firm with a number of interested parties."

Rosneft's chief, billionaire Mikhail Gutseriyev, is in hot water with authorities for buying upstream assets of oil firm Yukos just before it went bankrupt, according to some local media reports.

Gutseriyev, whose fortune is estimated at three billion dollars by Forbes, has however denied being in talks to sell the group.

Earlier this month Rosneft said it had doubled its assets this year and secured an advantageous 22-billion-dollar- (16-billion-euro-) loan.

Once a relatively unknown state oil company, Rosneft has risen rapidly to become Russia's number one oil producer.

It has been the main beneficiary of Yukos' destruction, winning billions of dollars' worth of Yukos assets at auction.