Gunvor was created in 1997 by Gen-nady Timchenko, whose early career had been in the Soviet oil trade in what is now St Petersburg, and Torbjorn Torn-qvist, a Swedish oil trader who had worked at bp. It has expanded into various businesses, including oil terminals and coal. Its revenues have grown from $5 billion in 2004 to an expected $80 billion in 2011-even as its share of Russian seaborne exports has fallen. Gunvor group does not report its profits. Gunvor's break came in 2004. That year the Kremlin broke up Yukos, then Russia's largest producer, over a tax claim. Yukos's largest production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, ended up with state-owned Rosneft. And Rosneft handed responsibility for its international trade to Gunvor. At first it did not hold public tenders to see if another buyer would offer a better price than Gunvor's.
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