Rosneft’s new chairman Alexander Nekipelov has warned his government to take a cautious approach over selling important oil assets. According to the privatisation plan for Rosneft, which pumps nearly a quarter of the country’s oil, the state is aiming to lower its stake from 75.16% to 51%.

Mr Nekipelov told Reuters: “To make this decision (to give up a controlling stake in the company) the government should be guided by a certain calculus, not an abstract notion that the public sector is bad and the private sector is good.”

He added: “Rosneft’s assets are huge. It’s capitalisation is around $90 billion. To allow some independent directors to manage such assets is a very exotic point of view,”

Russia is the world’s largest crude oil exporter and produced a total of 505 million tonnes of oil last year, and of this Rosneft produced 120 million tonnes.