In 2021, about 4.25 trillion rubles accumulated on the accounts of Surgutneftegaz. These funds are not spent on the development of production and are not used to pay dividends, but are accumulated over many years, the Dossier Center found out . At the same time, the company actually belongs to no one, but it is controlled by Vladimir Putin's closest friends, and Putin himself may be its main beneficiary.
According to the publication's sources, the funds accumulated in the company's accounts belong to Putin. “Someday this money will disappear from the accounts. And you will never know what happened to them,” says one of the Dossier’s interlocutors.
After the outbreak of the war, Surgutneftegaz stopped publishing detailed reports from which it would be possible to find out the amount of accumulated funds.
According to the official version, the ultimate owners of Surgutneftegaz are the company's employees, among whom the shares are distributed. However, as the publication found out, from 76.1 to 81.35% of the shares belong to NGOs, which, from the point of view of the law, have no beneficiaries.
A significant part of Surgutneftegaz's exports for more than 20 years has gone through the firms of Putin's close friend Gennady Timchenko and his partner. Their IPP group is the main partner of the company; it exported Surgut's oil products for $78.2 billion.
A key role in concealing the assets of Surgutneftegaz, in addition to Timchenko, is played by Vladimir Bogdanov, long-term general director of the company. He earns more than 5 billion rubles a year, his family owns real estate worth 1.5 billion rubles. Bogdanov is perhaps the highest paid top manager in Russia, the investigation notes.
