A decision to fund the purchase of a stake in Russian oil major Rosneft via loans from European banks was not effective, Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin said, acknowledging for the first time issues around the financing of the 2016 deal.

At the end of 2016, Qatari sovereign wealth fund QIA and Swiss trader Glencore bought a 19.5 per cent stake in Rosneft from the Russian state for 10.2 billion euros.

Rosneft was in negotiations with China’s CEFC to take over a part of the stake held Glencore and QIA, but those talks collapsed with no deal. In May this year, QIA changed the terms of its ownership of its stake, acquiring it outright.

Asked about the Qatari decision to take the stake into direct ownership, Sechin said in an interview that "it was a positive decision."

"The thing was that the initial decision to attract credit from European banks is, currently, less effective, and moving to direct ownership will increase effectiveness for the Qatar fund," Sechin said.

He added that dividends for 2018 are expected to be higher than in 2017. "Expecting that, from the point of view of owning shares, it’s much more effective to receive these dividends yourself than to pay the refinancing rate to banks."