Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer is one company boss who won’t be falling on his sword. Two years ago, the chief executive of OMV, the Austrian gas and oil company, spent €1.2bn buying a 21 per cent stake in Mol as part of a fiercely fought takeover bid for the Hungarian refiner. It didn’t work. Ruttenstorfer was stuck with the stake. But now, unexpectedly, he has sold it to Russia’s Surgutneftegaz for twice what it was worth last week and some 16 per cent more than he originally paid. Nice work.

Surgut’s opportunistic acquisition is another sign that Russian companies are moving in on European refiners. Lukoil made a similar highly priced pitch for a minority stake in Spain’s Repsol last year – but struggled with the financing. Surgut, by contrast, has $19bn of cash, enough to buy Mol four times over. Although both companies are privately owned, in Kremlin speak such expansion is usually expressed as Russia’s need to ensure “security of energy demand”. The choice of words by Surgut – close to the Kremlin and a perennially rumoured merger partner for state-controlled Rosneft – is even more pointed. Mol will help it “achieve maximum proximity to end users”.