Mr Craig Bond, the son of the disgraced Australian tycoon Alan Bond, was at one time contemplating the takeover of Bula Resources, according to the Russian businessman Mr Nikolai Bogachev.
Mr Bond, who met recently with Mr Bogachev, has presented documents which give him power of attorney to act for the British Virgin Islands company, Mir Oil Development Ltd.
Mir Oil, Bula Resources, and a Russian company, KMNGG, are involved in a deal agreed in September 1995 and concerned with the Salymskoye oilfield in Siberia. Aspects of the deal, including the identity of the beneficial owers of Mir Oil, are currently being investigated by a government-appointed investigator, Mr Lyndon McCann.
Mr Bogachev told The Irish Times yesterday that if Mr Bond's documents are confirmed by his solicitors, and if it can be established that Mr Bond can act for the Mir Oil subsidiary, Mir Space, then he will negotiate with Mr Bond to terminate the September 1995 deal.
The Salymskoye deal involved Bula giving 101 million shares for 25 per cent of Mir Space. Mir Space holds an interest in half of any output from the oilfield. In 1996 Bula spent £7.3 million on developing the field. Two institutions, Morgan Grenfell and Capital International, bought £9 million worth of Bula shares, the money to be used on the Siberian oilfield.
A well drilled on the field was the subject of an incorrect announcement to the Stock Exchange. Results of 942 barrels per day were announced, whereas in fact the amount of oil in the well is insignificant.
Mir Oil has sold around one quarter of the Bula shares it received as part of the deal. Trading in the other shares has been prohibited by an order of the High Court. The matter comes up in court again today. Mr Bond has only recently disclosed his link with Mir Oil. A colleague of Mr Bogachev's, Mr Vladamir Tokarev, was advised by the former chairman of Bula, Mr Jim Stanley, that Mr Bond was coming to Moscow and wanted to have a meeting. The meeting occurred two weeks ago.
Mr Stanley was the chief Bula figure involved in setting up the Salymskoye deal. His whereabouts were unknown for some months prior to The Irish Times reporting, two weeks ago, that he was in Moscow.
In Moscow Mr Stanley is sharing a business address with a Russian man, Mr Anatoly Sokolov, who has been mentioned before in relation to Bula's whole engagement in Russia.
Prior to the Salymskoye deal Mr Stanley arranged another, ultimately disastrous, deal involving a company called the Russian Corporation and the Shapshinskoye oilfield in Siberia.
A representative of the Russian Corporation and a former director of Bula, Mr Alexandr Marichev, told The Irish Times that at around the time Mr Stanley first made contact with the company, they introduced him to Mr Sokolov. Mr Sokolov worked for an organisation involved in the Soviet military-industrial complex.
