The Moscow Times - Friday, Sep. 12, 1003
He may be retired from public life but George (Herbert Walker) Bush seems to cause a stir every time he comes to Russia.
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...an $18 billion play by U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco for a blocking stake in the new Yukos-Sibneft combo? The launch of a $500 million private tie-up between Alfa Group and Pentagon-connected Carlyle Group? Divvying up the hydrocarbon resources of postwar Iraq?
...news spread that Bush was also here to help finalize the creation of a $500 million private equity fund between Russian oil-to-telecoms giant Alfa and one of his present employers, the Carlyle Group, a defense industry insider that counts former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and former British Prime Minister John Major among its advisers.
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Weafer said Yukos shareholders appeared to be trying to play two U.S. oil majors, Chevron and ExxonMobil, off of each other in a bid to push the deal along.
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...set off a race between other global oil majors to be the next to clinch the next big deal in one of the fastest-growing oil patches in the world.
Executives from both Chevron and Exxon have been in Moscow for months conducting due diligence studies on Yukos and Sibneft.
Joseph Stanislaw, the president of the influential Washington-based think tank Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said by telephone that a race certainly seemed to have started for Russia's oil resources, especially because Iraq, which has the world's second-largest reserves, is still in chaos.
"For international oil majors to grow they have to find brand new reserves. The only opportunities are in Russia, Kazakhstan and parts of the Middle East," said Stanislaw, who is also visiting Moscow.
"Iraq is a potential opportunity, but nobody is sure when they are going to be able to go in. If you're not the first and second mover in Russia, you could lose an opportunity. In Iraq, there isn't even a queue yet."
But despite THE BUSH FAMILY'S WELL-KNOWN TIES WITH THE OIL INDUSTRY, (emphasis added) some analysts said they doubted he would try and talk up a deal with YukosSibneft.
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2003/09/12/002.html