SOVIET UNION'S OIL EXPORT AGENCY PRIVATIZES
Soyuzneftexport, the Soviet Union's giant state oil exporting agency, has declared itself an employee owned, private enterprise.
Soyuzneftexport, in charge of oil exports for the Soviet Oil Ministry and one of the world's biggest oil exporters, will be known as Nafta Moskva, or Moscow Oil. Company employees voted late last month to become independent of the national government and create a joint stock company in which workers are sole shareholders. There are no plans to sell shares to nonemployees.
The company sent a petition to Russian federation President Boris Yeltsin asking him for approval of the change. After the failed hardliners' coup in August, Yeltsin ordered all government ministries in Russia to be transferred to Russian jurisdiction.
The move is seen as giving the export agency more flexibility and efficiency as the new structure is to involve less red tape in decisions on production quotas and oil prices previously set by Moscow bureaucrats. According to government estimates, Soviet oil production is expected to drop to an average 10.56 million b/d in 1991 from 11.04 million b/d in 1990 and 11.78 million in 1989.
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