Russia's energy tsar: who is Igor Sechin?...

FACTBOX - Russia's energy tsar: who is Igor Sechin?...

(Reuters) - Following are key facts about Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin who oversees the oil, gas and metals industries of the world's biggest energy producer.

Sechin, a close ally of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and chairman of Russian oil giant Rosneft, gave a 90-minute interview to Reuters at the weekend.

* Sechin has been a close Putin ally since they met in the early 1990s on a trip to Brazil. Both men worked together in the St Petersburg mayor's office and Sechin followed Putin to Moscow in 1996 where they rose through the Kremlin administration to the pinnacle of Russian power.

* Sechin was born on Sept. 7, 1960 in Soviet Leningrad, now renamed St Petersburg, and graduated from Leningrad University in languages (Portuguese and French).

* His official biography is extremely brief and little is known about the first 28 years of his life. Sechin says merely that he served in the armed forces, though local media have repeatedly said he served in foreign or military intelligence.

* Sechin worked as a translator in Mozambique as part of a little-known Soviet trade body known as Tekhnoexport, which is said to have supplied arms to Africa. Later he worked as a military translator in Angola.

* Sechin's past is so shrouded in mystery that after Putin was elected president in 2000, Russian newspapers complained that they did not even have a photograph of Sechin.

* While Putin was Kremlin chief from 2000 to 2008, Sechin served as his deputy chief of staff and was branded as "the grey cardinal" of Russian politics by local media.

* After Putin left the Kremlin in 2008 to become prime minister, Sechin was named one of seven deputy prime ministers and has come out of the shadows to take on a more public role.

Sechin has been used by Putin to build closer Russian ties with China, Cuba and Venezuela.

* Sechin is viewed by businessmen, diplomats and officials as the informal leader of a group of "siloviki" -- "men of power" with a background in the military or security services -- who are suspicious of the West and want a strong state role in the Russian economy. He rejects this moniker.

* Sechin has been named by jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky as the man who masterminded the Kremlin's destruction of the YUKOS business empire, which fell foul of Putin during his first term as president.

Khodorkovsky was arrested on Oct. 25, 2003, by armed agents from the FSB state security service and YUKOS -- which pumped more oil than OPEC member Qatar -- was carved up and sold. Most of the prime assets went to Rosneft, the state-controlled oil company chaired by Sechin.

* Sechin was in November 2009 ranked by Forbes as the world's 42nd most powerful person, more influential than Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who was ranked 43rd.

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