(Fortune Magazine) -- There are many things that simply can't be known about Russia's largest independent company, Lukoil. How did its president come to control the oil and gas giant in the first place? How do the founders get away with buying company assets through a bank they own? And, perhaps most important, can it survive if oil prices stay as low as they are?
AN APOLOGY: Since this story was published in Fortune's Feb. 2, 2009, issue, we have discovered that several passages were lifted from "The Triumph of the Quiet Tycoon," written by Peter Maass and published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on Aug. 1, 2004. Fortune apologizes ...