The contract of Rosneft with the Chinese CEFC in the process of bankruptcy to supply oil to China without danger, told two close to different sides of the transaction of man. CEFC was going to buy 14.16% of Rosneft for $ 9.1 billion. She also pledged to buy 10 million tons of oil a year for five years.

But in the end, the deal to buy shares was canceled because of the financial problems of the CEFC. Now the company will be restructured and divided into three parts, Vedomosti interlocutors say. In particular, the trading "daughter" with the same name will be allocated, then it will be given to the new owner, they specify. It is she who will inherit the contract with Rosneft, Vedomosti's interlocutors added.

One of the interlocutors assures that the owner of the trader may become a state conglomerate CITIC Group, which has already bought part of the CEFC assets. The second one says that the company will be transferred to merge with the private petrochemical and textile Hengli Group. This can happen in the next month or two. In any case, the current CEFC contracts with Rosneft will continue, the trading subsidiary CEFC will continue to operate in Russia, two Vedomosti interlocutors assure.

The five-year contract for 10 million tons a year Rosneft signed with the CEFC in September 2017. The contract provides for an automatic extension for another five years and 50 million tons, told two interlocutors Vedomosti, close to the various signatories to the document. The representative of Rosneft did not comment on this. The CEFC representative did not answer Vedomosti's questions.

The cause of the collapse of the CEFC became financial problems, they began in late 2017, when American banks canceled earlier issued credit lines, Vedomosti's interlocutors said. In addition, in early 2017, co-founder and president of the CEFC E Jianming was questioned by Chinese law enforcers, and then ended up in prison. However, some time ago he was released, according to Vedomosti's interlocutors.

Unlike the private CEFC, there are many known about the state CITIC Group. It is an investment corporation, it includes steel producing companies, iron ore mining, energy businesses, infrastructure companies, telecommunications, as well as companies in retail and logistics. Private Hengli Group was created by businessman Chen Jianhua in 1994, his fortune Forbes estimates at $ 2.1 billion. In the Fortune Global 500 list, his company ranks 268th with revenues of $ 37.9 billion and net profit of $ 821.7 billion. CEFC at the time of the announcement of the deal with Rosneft was ranked 229th in the same list with revenue of $ 43.7 billion and a profit of about $ 740 million. Hengli owns one of the world's largest plants for the production of terephthalic acid, which is used in the textile industry and production industrial fibers. The group includes enterprises from the whole chain - from crude oil suppliers to polyester, yarn, and PET packaging. The representative of the CITIC Group did not answer Vedomosti's questions, it was not possible to contact representatives of the Hengli Group on June 12.

Now Rosneft is the largest Russian oil supplier to China. The company accounts for 76% of exports from Russia to this country. Rosneft, as its chief executive Igor Sechin said, delivered 40 million tons to China last year. The contract with CEFC will increase shipments by a quarter.

The Chinese market is an important direction for Rosneft, says BCS analyst Kirill Tachennikov: "A growing market with stagnant domestic production is a good growth point." Now, Rosneft accounts for 19.7% of oil deliveries to Asia (47.7 million tonnes) and 15% of revenues (955 billion rubles).

The risk of losing the contract was minimal, says Raiffeisenbank analyst Andrei Polishchuk. In the case of restructuring the company and selling part of the business, new structures tend to retain all obligations both for loans and for contracts, he points out.