With every passing day, Sibir Energy’s listing on Aim looks all the more incongruous. The integrated oil company, which is wholly focused on the Russia market, has a market capitalisation pushing £3.6bn. That is twice as big as the next largest stock on London’s junior market and enough to put it in the top 80 of the FTSE 100, never mind the FTSE 350. The last resources company to outgrow Aim, Yamana Gold, was considered a monster at £2.4bn.

Sibir’s size is testament to the approach taken by chief executive Henry Cameron, a wily Aberdonian. Sensing growing hostility towards foreign energy companies, he went looking for Russian co-investors from the outset, 12 years ago, as he began to accumulate assets. True, the group has experienced the usual raids from tax and environmental authorities and Sibir was squeezed out of a joint venture with Sibneft five years ago. But it seems insulated from the kind of systematic antagonism suffered by BP. Today, about 67 per cent of the shares are in Russian hands, including – crucially – an 18 per cent stake held by the City of Moscow.