Nikolai Buinov Net Worth

Nikolai Buinov has an estimated net worth of $5.1 billion, according to Forbes Real-Time Billionaires, Nikolai Buinov profile (figures as of October 20, 2026). That is up from $2 billion in 2019.

Nikolai Buinov is a Russian businessman and the main shareholder of Irkutsk Oil Company, the largest independent private oil producer in Russia. He was born on June 19, 1967, in Krasnoyarsk, and Forbes describes him as self-made.

He graduated from St. Petersburg State Transport University in 1990 and started his career at a timber company in the early 1990s. He is married with two children and lives in Irkutsk, the Siberian city where his company is based.

He has been president of the company since 2011 and chairman of its board since January 2022. He owns 64% of its shares.

Buinov's story shows how a supplier to Siberian gold miners became an oil producer. His early work moving fuel through a remote region taught him the local terrain, and his partnership with a geologist helped him spot oil fields that larger companies had not yet developed.

How Nikolai Buinov made his money

In 1995, Buinov and his father founded Bodaibo energy company, which supplied fuel and lubricants to gold miners in the north of the Irkutsk region. Through that work he met the geologist Boris Sinyavsky, who told him about the oil potential of eastern Siberia.

In 1997 Buinov bought the license for an oil field, the start of what became Irkutsk Oil Company. He founded the company with his father and Sinyavsky in 2000. In 2017 he announced plans to raise crude output to 8.5 million tons a year.

Outside investors came and went. Buinov sold a stake to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 2008, and the bank later sold part of it to Goldman Sachs. In 2022 Goldman Sachs sold its stake back to Buinov and his partners. He has also invested in hotels, financing the restoration of the Wawelberg Bank building in St. Petersburg, which opened as a hotel in 2021.

How Forbes has valued Nikolai Buinov

Forbes valued Buinov at $2 billion in 2019. His figure fell to $1.4 billion in 2020, rose to $2.2 billion in 2021 and dropped to $1.5 billion in 2022.

It climbed to $1.9 billion in 2023, $3.3 billion in 2024 and $4.8 billion in 2025, then eased to $4.2 billion on the 2026 World's Billionaires List. As of October 20, 2026, the Forbes real-time billionaires tracker showed $5.1 billion, his highest figure so far.