On the surface, Renova is simply investing in MOL, a prestigious and sucessful company completley protected from market forces by a friendly government that learned from the best since 1956 on how to protect a company. Surgut also wants to be associated with the best and is interested in the refining capacity that Mol has. I think that both statements are most probably true. What is unspoken is that the future of Mol is no in oil. There is not not enough of it in Hungary to have any impact, and it will never get big enough to be a counterwight to gazprom, Exxon, BP, Shell, etc...and to compete in the open market for oil resouces is to invite disaster. In my view the future of Mol is in natural gas, and specifically the unconventional type in Europe. Just wait to see how popular Mol will be once Mako gets going and produces oogles of cash for the 3 owners. And here is one play in Russia's backyard where they can watch and try to learn, considering of course that Russia want s to stay on top of the natural gas game.

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