High-profile oil and gas executives are teaming up with private equity funds seeking to invest billions in British North Sea assets and maximise profits by cutting costs, offering the ageing basin a badly needed lifeline.

Alfa Group’s A1, the trading and investment company owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, said that it failed for a second time to attract buyers for a logistics centre owned by the Government.

Ryanair has been granted permission to fly to destinations in Russia from March next year by the country’s aviation authority.

Just 110 people own more than a third of Russia’s total wealth, the highest level of inequality in the world barring small Caribbean nations, a new report says.

Ireland’s ambassador to Russia, Philip McDonagh, said recovering assets related to the Quinn family may help trade relations between the two nations.

A long-running dispute between BP and the partners in its Russian joint-venture TNK-BP appeared to have been resolved today.

The richest man in Russia after Roman Abramovich today unveiled plans to float his steel giant on the London market with a mooted value of £6bn (€8.8bn).

A prized collection of Fabergé eggs owned by the family of late American publisher Malcolm Forbes has been sold to a Russian oil tycoon who said he intends to return the collection to their homeland.

Russia's anti-trust ministry has approved the merger of local oil firm TNK with BP. This removes the last obstacle for the two companies to create Russia's third largest oil producer.