LUKOIL
"In Russia, the oil belongs to the state. The state belongs to one man. And one man's patience is not infinite."
ONE
THE OILMAN
EXT. BAKU, AZERBAIJAN SSR - DAY (1960)
The Caspian coast. Oil derricks line the shore like a forest of iron. The air smells of petroleum. YOUNG VAGIT ALEKPEROV, 10, walks with his father, a veteran oil worker, along the waterfront. Tankers sit in the harbor. The ground itself seems to sweat black.
Baku, Azerbaijan. 1960. The oil capital of the Soviet Union.
FATHER
Every drop of oil that comes out of this ground belongs to the Soviet people, Vagit. Not to the workers. Not to the managers. To the people. That is socialism. That is how it works.
YOUNG VAGIT
Then why are the workers poor and the managers have cars?
His father slaps him — not hard, but sharply. A warning.
FATHER
(low, looking around)
Do not say things like that. Not here. Not anywhere. You work. You produce. You keep your mouth shut. That is how you survive.
Young Vagit rubs his cheek. He does not forget the lesson: survival requires silence.
EXT. WESTERN SIBERIA OIL FIELDS - DAY (1979)
Frozen tundra. Temperatures of minus 40. Oil rigs operating in conditions that would shut down any Western operation. VAGIT ALEKPEROV, 29, in a heavy parka, supervises drilling operations. He is already a rising star in the Soviet oil ministry — the youngest chief geologist in Western Siberia.
Western Siberia. 1979. The Soviet Union produces more oil than any nation on Earth. Alekperov, 29, runs the Kogalym production unit.
ALEKPEROV
(shouting over the wind to his FOREMAN)
The well is underperforming. Pressure is dropping. We need to redrill at the secondary depth.
FOREMAN
Moscow says we've met our quota. They want us to move to the next site.
ALEKPEROV
Moscow does not understand this geology. If we abandon this well, we leave 40 million barrels in the ground. Tell Moscow I will move when the well is properly developed. Not before.
FOREMAN
(nervous)
Comrade Alekperov, defying Moscow —
ALEKPEROV
I am not defying Moscow. I am producing more oil than Moscow asked for. Let them complain about surplus.
ALEKPEROV (breaking the fourth wall)
The Soviet oil industry was the most productive and the most wasteful operation in the history of energy. We extracted more oil than anyone, but we left half of it in the ground because the system rewarded meeting quotas, not maximizing recovery. I spent twenty years watching the state waste the greatest oil reserves on Earth. And I swore that if I ever had the chance to do it differently, I would not waste a single barrel.
INT. SOVIET OIL MINISTRY, MOSCOW - DAY (1990)
The Soviet Union is collapsing. Gorbachev's reforms have unleashed chaos. ALEKPEROV, 39, now the youngest Deputy Minister of Oil and Gas in Soviet history, sits in a cavernous ministry office. The portraits of Lenin and Brezhnev still hang on the walls, but the system they represented is dying.
Moscow. 1990. Alekperov becomes Deputy Minister of Oil and Gas at age 39. The Soviet Union has eighteen months to live.
ALEKPEROV
(to his staff)
The ministry system is finished. Central planning cannot run a modern oil industry. I have submitted a proposal to consolidate three production units — Langepas, Urai, and Kogalym — into a single vertically integrated oil company. From wellhead to gas station. One company. One name.
MINISTRY AIDE
What name?
ALEKPEROV
LUK-oil. L-U-K, from the first letters of the three cities. Lukoil.
INT. KREMLIN OFFICE - DAY (1991)
BORIS YELTSIN, newly installed President of the Russian Federation, meets with Alekperov. Yeltsin is ruddy, expansive, unpredictable. The country is in freefall. He needs allies who can keep the economy functioning.
YELTSIN
Alekperov. You want to privatize the oil industry. My advisors tell me this is madness.
ALEKPEROV
Mr. President, with respect, the current system is already mad. Production is collapsing. Equipment is falling apart. The state cannot manage what it built. Give me these three production units and I will build a company that produces more oil, employs more people, and pays more taxes than the ministry ever did.
YELTSIN
(leaning forward)
And you will be rich.
ALEKPEROV
(meeting his gaze)
Yes. I will be rich. And Russia will be richer. That is how markets work.
YELTSIN
(after a long pause, laughing)
I like you, Alekperov. You don't pretend to be a patriot. You pretend to be an oilman. Do it. Build your company. But remember — what the state gives, the state can take away.
1991. Lukoil is officially established. It will become the largest private oil company in Russia and one of the largest in the world.
DISSOLVE TO:
TWO
THE OLIGARCH
INT. LUKOIL HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW - DAY (1997)
A gleaming new headquarters. Alekperov sits at the head of a boardroom table. Lukoil is now publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. Western investors are pouring in. The company produces 2 million barrels per day.
ALEKPEROV
(to his board, including RAVIL MAGANOV)
We are not oligarchs. We are industrialists. The difference is critical. Oligarchs take. Industrialists build. We invest in our wells. We modernize our refineries. We hire engineers, not politicians. That is how we survive.
MAGANOV
Vagit, the other oligarchs are buying newspapers, television stations, football clubs. Berezovsky controls Channel One. Khodorkovsky is funding opposition parties. Perhaps we should —
ALEKPEROV
(cutting him off sharply)
No. We produce oil. That is all we do. The moment we enter politics is the moment we become a target. My father taught me one thing: keep your mouth shut and your wells open.
INT. KREMLIN - DAY (2003)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, now president, sits across from the oligarchs at a televised meeting. Among them: MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY, CEO of Yukos. Khodorkovsky is challenging. Aggressive. He has been funding opposition parties and publicly criticizing Putin.
KHODORKOVSKY
(to Putin, in front of cameras)
Mr. President, corruption in the oil industry costs Russia billions. State officials demand bribes for every permit, every pipeline license. This must stop.
Putin's expression does not change. But his eyes go cold.
PUTIN
(calmly)
Mikhail Borisovich, you are absolutely right about corruption. Perhaps we should start the investigation with Yukos.
The room goes silent. Every oligarch understands. ALEKPEROV, sitting three seats away, keeps his face perfectly neutral. He does not speak. He does not react.
October 2003. Khodorkovsky is arrested. Charged with fraud and tax evasion. Sentenced to ten years in a Siberian prison camp. Yukos is dismantled. Its assets are absorbed by state-controlled Rosneft. The message is clear: the Kremlin's tolerance has limits.
INT. ALEKPEROV'S PRIVATE OFFICE - NIGHT (2003)
Alekperov alone. He pours vodka. His hands are steady but his jaw is clenched. He watched Khodorkovsky's arrest on television. The richest man in Russia, dragged from his plane by FSB agents. It could have been any of them. It could be him.
MAGANOV
(entering)
Vagit. The Khodorkovsky situation. Do we issue a statement?
ALEKPEROV
Absolutely not.
MAGANOV
He was our colleague. He built Yukos from nothing, just as we built Lukoil.
ALEKPEROV
(turning sharply)
And he challenged the president of Russia on live television. Khodorkovsky is brilliant. He is also a fool. You do not embarrass the tsar in his own court. You do not fund his enemies. You do not give speeches about corruption while sitting on a $15 billion fortune built from privatization vouchers that cost you nothing. Khodorkovsky forgot the first rule: the state gave it. The state can take it. We will not make that mistake.
ALEKPEROV (breaking the fourth wall)
People call me a coward for staying silent while Khodorkovsky rotted in prison. Perhaps I am. But I have 150,000 employees and their families who depend on Lukoil existing tomorrow. The difference between me and Khodorkovsky is not courage. It is calculation. He bet that Russia was a democracy. I knew it was not.
INT. KREMLIN - DAY (2005)
Alekperov meets privately with Putin. Just the two of them. Tea on the table. The informality is deliberate and terrifying.
PUTIN
Vagit Yusufovich. You have been very quiet lately. I appreciate quiet.
ALEKPEROV
I am an oilman, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Oilmen produce oil. That is what Lukoil does.
PUTIN
And you do it well. Lukoil is Russia's most profitable company. The West likes you. The stock market likes you. You have been very careful. Very... correct.
ALEKPEROV
(carefully)
I serve Russia's interests by producing oil efficiently. Nothing more.
PUTIN
(a thin smile)
Good. Continue. And Vagit — if you ever need a reminder of what happens to those who serve their own interests instead of Russia's, visit Khodorkovsky in Krasnokamensk. The weather is very clarifying.
CUT TO:
THREE
THE WAR
INT. LUKOIL HEADQUARTERS - DAY (FEBRUARY 24, 2022)
Russia invades Ukraine. The world recoils. Sanctions cascade. Lukoil's Western partners freeze contracts. The stock plummets. Trading is halted on the London Stock Exchange.
February 24, 2022. Russia invades Ukraine. Western sanctions target Russian oil companies. Lukoil's share price collapses.
CFO
Vagit, our London listing is suspended. BP has divested its stake in Rosneft. Shell has left Russia. Western banks are cutting us off. We are looking at hundreds of billions in market value destroyed.
ALEKPEROV
(staring out the window at Moscow)
Call a board meeting. Tomorrow.
INT. LUKOIL BOARDROOM - DAY (MARCH 3, 2022)
The full board. ALEKPEROV at the head. MAGANOV beside him. The atmosphere is electric with fear. What they are about to do is unprecedented.
ALEKPEROV
We are issuing a statement calling for an end to the conflict.
Silence. Board members look at each other in shock.
BOARD MEMBER
Vagit. No Russian company has opposed the invasion. This is — this could be interpreted as treason.
ALEKPEROV
We are not opposing the government. We are expressing concern for peace. There is a difference. And it is a difference that may save this company. Our Western partners, our investors, our customers need to see that Lukoil is not the Kremlin. We are a publicly traded company with international obligations.
MAGANOV
(quietly)
I support the statement. We have employees in Ukraine. We have a moral obligation.
The statement is issued. Lukoil becomes the only major Russian company to publicly call for a cessation of hostilities.
March 3, 2022. Lukoil issues a statement calling for "the soonest termination of the armed conflict." It is the only major Russian company to do so.
INT. ALEKPEROV'S HOME, MOSCOW - NIGHT (APRIL 2022)
Alekperov sits in his study. He has just resigned as CEO and president of Lukoil — the company he founded thirty years ago. The official reason is sanctions. The real reason is survival.
MAGANOV
(on phone)
Vagit. It's done. Your resignation has been accepted by the board. Are you all right?
ALEKPEROV
(staring at the wall)
I built this company from three Soviet oil fields and a borrowed typewriter. Thirty years. And it ends because a man in the Kremlin decided to invade a country for reasons that have nothing to do with oil, nothing to do with business, nothing to do with anything rational.
MAGANOV
It's not the end, Vagit. The company survives. That was always the priority.
ALEKPEROV
Ravil, be careful. We made our statement. The Kremlin noticed. They always notice.
MAGANOV
I am always careful.
April 2022. Vagit Alekperov resigns from Lukoil after 31 years. He is placed on the EU sanctions list. His estimated fortune of $20 billion is frozen.
EXT. CENTRAL CLINICAL HOSPITAL, MOSCOW - DAY (SEPTEMBER 1, 2022)
A gray morning. A hospital in central Moscow. Police cars and ambulances surround the building. A body lies on the ground beneath a sixth-floor window.
September 1, 2022. Ravil Maganov, Chairman of Lukoil's board, dies after falling from a sixth-floor hospital window. He was 67.
A JOURNALIST reports from outside the hospital.
JOURNALIST
(to camera)
Lukoil's chairman, Ravil Maganov, has died at Central Clinical Hospital after apparently falling from a window. Hospital officials say he was being treated for a heart condition. This makes Maganov the latest in a string of Russian business executives who have died in mysterious circumstances since the start of the war in Ukraine.
INT. UNDISCLOSED LOCATION - DAY (SEPTEMBER 2022)
Alekperov sits in a room somewhere outside of Russia. The television shows coverage of Maganov's death. His face is gray. His hands tremble.
ALEKPEROV
(V.O.)
Ravil was my partner for thirty years. He did not fall from a window. Men who call for peace in Russia do not fall from windows by accident. They are pushed. Not by hands. By the system. By the understanding that dissent has consequences and that the consequences are final.
He turns off the television. He sits in silence.
ALEKPEROV
(V.O., continuing)
I spent my life building an oil company and staying silent. I stayed silent when Khodorkovsky was imprisoned. I stayed silent through two decades of Putin's rule. I stayed silent because silence was survival. And when we finally spoke — one statement, one call for peace — they killed my friend.
CUT TO:
FOUR
THE PRICE
EXT. BAKU WATERFRONT - SUNSET (PRESENT)
Alekperov walks along the Baku waterfront. The same shore where he walked with his father sixty years ago. The oil derricks are still there, though many are rusted and abandoned. The Caspian Sea is oily and still.
ALEKPEROV
(V.O.)
I started here. An oil worker's son. I rose through the Soviet system, survived its collapse, built the largest private oil company in Russia, and lost everything because I believed that a company could be something more than an instrument of the state. That was my mistake. In Russia, nothing is private. Not oil. Not wealth. Not even your own life.
INT. ALEKPEROV'S STUDY - NIGHT (PRESENT)
A desk. On it: a photograph of Maganov. A model of Lukoil's first oil rig. A bottle of vodka, untouched. Alekperov sits in the dark.
ALEKPEROV
(V.O.)
My father told me to keep my mouth shut and my wells open. I followed his advice for sixty years. And the one time I opened my mouth — to call for peace, to say what every rational person in the world was saying — they took my company, froze my fortune, and killed the man who stood beside me. That is the price of oil in Russia. Not dollars per barrel. Lives per barrel. And the price never goes down.
He reaches for the photograph of Maganov. Holds it. Then sets it down gently, face up, where he can see it.
FADE TO BLACK.
Vagit Alekperov founded Lukoil in 1991 and served as its president and CEO for 31 years. Under his leadership, Lukoil became Russia's largest private oil company, producing over 2 million barrels per day and operating in over 30 countries. He resigned in April 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of Western sanctions. Ravil Maganov, Lukoil's chairman, died on September 1, 2022, after falling from a hospital window in Moscow. Russian authorities ruled it a suicide. Lukoil's anti-war statement remains the only public call for peace issued by a major Russian corporation. Alekperov's fortune, once estimated at over $20 billion, has been largely frozen by Western sanctions. He has not returned to Russia. The oil still flows.
THE END