The oil business has never been for the faint of heart. But think back, if you will, some five years to a time when the industry was nothing like it is today. In mid-2003, when a barrel of oil fetched about $30, BP made what was then the largest ever foreign investment in a Russian firm. The British company paid more than $6 billion for a 50% stake in TNK-BP, an oil outfit it set up with a consortium of four Russian billionaires. Vladimir Putin, Russia's President at the time, joined Tony Blair, then Britain's Prime Minister, in cheering the joint...
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