Russ Oil-Gas

01 October 2007 - Upstream OnLine - Russian player Sibir Energy backed away from a plan to sell a majority stake to Gazprom, according to reports. Earlier this year, company boss Shalva Chigrinsky said Sibir was in talks to sell a controlling stake to Gazprom. Sibir had offered Gazprom a 50% plus one share in a bid to resolve a dispute over assets, Chigirinsky said. However, plans to sell a stake to Gazprom are "on ice," Bloomberg quoted Stuard Detmer, a member of the board and head of the company's oil refining and distribution, as saying. "It'll take two sides to agree to that," Detmer said. "Right now we're not discussing it."