Russia 100527 Basic Political Developments

MarketWatch: CNH and KAMAZ Finalize Strategic Alliance in Russia

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cnh-and-kamaz-finalize-strategic-alliance-in-russia-2010-05-27?reflink=MW_news_stmp
MOSCOW, May 27, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- CNH Global NV and Russia's OJSC KAMAZ today announced that they have finalized their agreement for a commercial joint venture. This follows and completes the industrial partnership sealed last March, and forms a new alliance that has the resources, technology and distribution network required to support Russian customers more effectively with agricultural and construction machinery.

The commercial agreement was signed today in Moscow by Franco Fusignani, CNH International CEO, and Sergey Kogogin, General Director of OJSC KAMAZ.

The new company, CNH-KAMAZ Commercial BV, of which CNH will hold a 51 percent share and KAMAZ the remaining 49 percent, will distribute and service agricultural and construction equipment in the Russian Federation. CNH-KAMAZ Commercial will begin operations immediately.

A preliminary agreement on the partnership was signed last October 2009 by Sergio Marchionne, Chairman of CNH Global NV and Chief Executive Officer of Fiat S.p.A., and by Sergey Chemezov, General Director of Rostechnologii, in the presence of Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. This was followed on March 22nd with the finalization of the related industrial joint venture to produce agricultural and construction equipment at the Naberezhnye Chelny plant, in the Republic of Tatarstan. Stretching over a total area of more than 50,000 square metres, the facility benefits from an initial investment of USD 70 Million to install an annual production capacity of 4,000 units, which will include tractors, combine harvesters and backhoe loaders.

Assembly of New Holland Agriculture new tractor models T8050, T9040, T9060, ranging from 325hp to 535hp, as well as the 272hp CSX7060 and 300hp CSX7080 combine harvesters has already started at the Naberezhnye Chelny factory.

Within the new commercial joint venture, CNH and KAMAZ have agreed to take advantage of their well established distribution networks in order to further strengthen their presence in the market.

CNH-KAMAZ Commercial, with its operations based in Moscow, will market and sell in the Russian market all New Holland locally produced and imported agricultural and construction equipment. CNH will provide the technology and know-how for commercial operations, including engineering support and counseling activities to ensure the venture meets CNH's global quality standards.

"This is a significant day not only for our companies but for the agricultural and construction equipment industry in Russia. The alliance with a partner as important as KAMAZ, a leading manufacturer in Russia, strengthens our strategy to establish a direct presence in a market that has enormous potential for growth," said Franco Fusignani, CNH International CEO. "The Russian market is a priority for us and this partnership brings us closer to our customers. This agreement gives us the opportunity to showcase our first-class technologies, broad product offering, innovative solutions and dedicated personnel, and to prove to Russian customers the value of our machinery. On this basis, we intend to expand the product portfolio of our CNH brands in Russia -- followed by other CIS countries -- with fuel-efficient, reliable and high-quality machinery, while improving the level of service, supporting a productive development of the agri-business and construction equipment sectors in the country."

"Our cooperation with CNH was supplemented with an important element: the new JV will promote the equipment produced in Naberezhnye Chelny, and provide customers with effective and comprehensive solutions. We are sure that our customers will appreciate services rendered by our JV at their true worth," said Sergey Kogogin, General Director of OJSC KAMAZ.

The alliance will allow the two firms to strengthen and synergize their resources in manufacturing and service to the benefit of the Russian agricultural and construction equipment sectors. In a first phase, the new venture will expand the New Holland branded product offerings that can count on a wide selection of low, medium and high-horsepower tractors, conventional and rotary combines, grape and forage harvesters, tillage and seeding complexes and a full spectrum of heavy construction and light industrial equipment for use in road building, quarrying, demolition, excavation, commercial building and maintenance operations.

Posted: May 27, 2010
Nano Werk: T-Platforms Group Chosen to Manage $6 Million Nanotechnology and Supercomputing Enablement Program http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=16464.php
(Nanowerk News) T-Platforms Group, a leading provider of HPC systems, software, services and solutions, was chosen by the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies, Rusnano, to lead the program management and execution for a competitive solicitation that will provide collaborative funding and development support for at least 20 nanotechnology-related computational tasks and 20 computational tasks from industrial production organizations. The industrial production tasks will be selected from specific industries targeted by this program to include engineering in areas such as shipbuilding, aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, energy and construction.
As part of this program, worth $6 million over a ten-month period, T-Services, a T-Platforms Group company acting as program manager, will evaluate applicants based on criteria such as potential importance, practicality, possible ROI, and applicability to spawning commercially sound results or products. Organizations will go through a two-stage process, and those selected for this program by the Expert Council under the leadership of Rusnano will receive 75% of the funding of the total computational project costs. T-Platforms, another T-Platforms Group company, will provide T-Services with a dedicated cluster for this project.
The Nanotechnology and Supercomputing Enablement Program has been designed to create a supercomputing service infrastructure based on end-to-end guidance, support and professional services. This is a significant effort on behalf of the Russian government to establish a robust commercial market for supercomputer simulations – an approach that could have a significant impact on improved production and productivity for many industrial / commercial market segments.
“The vision and leadership of Rusnano demonstrates this country’s keen understanding of the vital importance of supercomputing and the impact scientific and engineering discovery will have on the future of this planet,” said Vsevolod Opanasenko, CEO of T-Platforms Group. “We are pleased to have been selected for this very important project and look forward to our collaboration with Rusnano and our other program partners as we strive to eliminate many of the barriers to widespread HPC adoption.”
T-Services will work in close collaboration with the Joint Supercomputer Center of the Russian Academy of Science, the Computational Center of Moscow State University (MSU), Vladimir University, and Tomsk University to provide needed supercomputing resources.
Evgeny Evdokimov, Managing Director of Rusnano, said: “This program allocates funding to help organizations developing products or technologies that are deemed important for future productivity. Advancing the use of supercomputing for modeling and simulations has been identified as a vital competitive element to advancing scientific and engineering discovery, and we are pleased to partner with T-Services on this leading edge program.”
"The Rusnano program is seeding the scientific discovery efforts within Russia, but more importantly, it can be seen as a potential forerunner for a new way of funding and managing large-scale HPC projects," said Addison Snell, CEO of InterSect360 Research, a market research and consulting company dedicated to the worldwide HPC industry. "Rusnano recognizes HPC as the enabling technology for scientific and engineering progress, and it matches the responsibility of HPC stewardship with the expertise of T-Platforms. This takes us a step closer to HPC as a service for large-scale deployments, which could have long-term benefits for scientific and commercial productivity."
About T-Platforms
Established in 2002, T-Platforms Group is rapidly emerging as one of the leading global HPC companies, providing comprehensive supercomputing systems, software and services, with customer installations consistently included on the TOP500 worldwide list of the most powerful supercomputers.
T-Platforms Group consists of T-Platforms, T-Services, T-Massive Computing, and T-Design, with locations in Hannover, Moscow, Kiev and Taipei.
About Rusnano
The Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) was established in 2007 by the Russian government as a state corporation that co-invests in nanotechnology industry projects that have high commercial potential or social benefit.
Source: T-Platforms Group (press release)

Moscow Times: For the Record

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/for-the-record/406935.html
27 May 2010

• 
  Russia has 981 banks, a decrease of 26 in a year, Mikhail Sukhov, head of the Central Bank’s licensing department, said Wednesday. (Bloomberg)
  
• 
  United Company RusAl expects sales in Russia and the CIS to hit almost 1 million metric tons next year, double the amount sold last year, the company said Wednesday. (Bloomberg)
  

Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)

Steel Guru: Rosneft and Zarubezhneft applying for offshore licenses

http://www.steelguru.com/news/index/MTQ3NTg2/Rosneft_and_Zarubezhneft_applying_for_offshore_licenses.html
Thursday, 27 May 2010

Interfax quoted a Natural Resources Ministry source said Russian oil companies appear to be stepping up their interest in offshore licenses to some extent, although the cost-intensive nature of prospecting these properties is still dampening their enthusiasm.

The source said three state owned companies had applied to the Russian Federal Subsurface Resources Agency since April. Rosnedra has started to prepare licenses, but shelf properties are federal in importance, so it is up to the government to decide.

Rosneft has applied for licenses to the three Prinovozemelnye sections in the Kara Sea, close to the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. It has also applied for the rights to the Admiralteisky and Pakhtusovsky sections in the Barents Sea that used to be developed by Sintezneftegaz.

The source said Rosneft has also expressed an interest in the Yuzhno-Russky section in the Pechora Sea, thought to contain mainly oil of the highly sulfurous variety and therefore difficult to describe as appealing. In addition, Rosneft has applied for a license to the Yuzhno-Chernomorsky section in the Black Sea which is adjacent to the company existing Tuapsinsky Progib and Val Shatsky sections.

The source also said Zarubezhneft might gain access to offshore fields once it has merged with the state unitary enterprise Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka. It has already applied for the rights to the Madachagsky section in the Pechora Sea, but this has a common boundary with the Yuzhno-Russky section that Rosneft is aiming for so problems may arise.

Zarubezhneft has also applied for Tyulenii section in the Caspian Sea which used to be licensed to LLC Megatron NVK which was owned by Germany Wintershall AG. The source said the exploration license to this, the last available section in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea, expired in December last year and was returned to the state geology fund.

The source said the companies particularly Gazprom and Rosneft were reluctant to commit themselves to offshore projects. The source said "Rosnedra is willing to issue the licenses, but the companies are not keen to apply because they don't have the money needed to develop the shelf right now."

The source said "It costs USD 100 million to USD 120 million to drill one well on the shelf, but they need more than one well and then there is the seismic surveying on top of that. It can end up costing at least half a billion to explore just one section."

The license applications might have been triggered by a series of conferences on offshore development that ministries and government officials held early in the spring. The licenses might be issued as early as the fall if the government approves than and Rosnedra can agree the terms with the other agencies, above all the Energy Ministry quickly.

Rosneft has said in the past that it is interested in the Admiralteisky, Pakhtusovsky and Yuzhno-Russky sections, but it has not gone as far as actually applying for them.

The press offices of Gazprom and Zarubezhneft did not comment on the information.

(Sourced from Interfax)
UralSib: Rosneft Seeks compromise with FAS

http://www.businessneweurope.eu/dispatch_text11737

UralSib
May 27, 2010

Rosneft seeks amicable settlement of fine dispute with FAS. Rosneft yesterday asked the Moscow Arbitration Court to suspend consideration of its appeal against the Federal Antimonopoly Services (FAS) imposition of a RUB 5.3 bln ($176 mln) fine for sustaining monopolistically high prices on wholesale oil products along with TNK-BP (TNBP RU - Buy), Gazprom Neft (SIBN RX - Buy), and LUKOIL (LKOH RX - Hold) in 1H09. The reason for the request was that Rosneft has approached the FAS to try to settle the matter out of court.

FAS claim totals $1 bln. The Supreme Commercial Court yesterday upheld TNK-BPs fines of $36.6 mln imposed by the FAS for the same monopolistic pricing. The FASs claims against the four majors total $1 bln; those against LUKOIL, Gazprom Neft, and Rosneft and are to be considered by the same court later in May or June.

All may try to avoid fines. While TNK-BP appears to have no real way of appealing against the courts decision apart from going to the European Court of Human Rights, Rosneft, Gazprom Neft, and LUKOIL may be able to avoid penalties. The financial impact should be minor if they fail, as each of the four has created contingency liability reserves on their balance sheets for such eventualities.

All in all, the case sets a negative precedent for the four majors and the sector as a whole.

Victor Mishnyakov

Bloomberg: Alltech Pitches $3.9 Billion Russia LNG Project, Kommersant Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aayc6G7yR6OQ
By Stephen Bierman

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Alltech, Russian investor Dmitry Bosov’s holding company, is seeking partners for a $3.9 billion project to build a liquefied natural gas plant in the Arctic, Kommersant reported. PetroVietnam is considering the proposal, the Moscow-based newspaper said today.

Click here for web link

To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Bierman at [e-mail]

Last Updated: May 27, 2010 01:08 EDT

Hydro International: Nord Stream Pipeline to Block Harbours

http://www.hydro-international.com/news/id3895-Nord_Stream_Pipeline_to_Block_Harbours.html
  27/05/2010 German officials are warning that the Nord Stream running through the Baltic seabed will block access to the ports of Szczecin and Swinoujscie for a couple of years. In the construction agreement, the RFN Ship Transport Office states that big vessels will not be able to float over the pipe which will transfer gas from Russia to Germany.

German officials admit that it may be possible for some of the ships to find moving over the pipe unworkable. In order to diminish the difficulties with maneuvering, they propose that the location of the pipe be described in detail on nautical charts for each captain or helmsman to have a full overview of his ship's whereabouts and to choose the best possible route for it - wrote Nasz Dziennik, which got insight into the construction agreement of the Federal Office of Ship Transport and Hydrography (BSH) in Hamburg.

Gazprom

MAY 26, 2010, 7:48 A.M. ET

DJ: Gazprom: All Issues Settled With Customs Agency In Tax Dispute

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100526-705414.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesAsia

MOSCOW (Dow Jones)--Russian gas producer OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) has resolved a dispute with the country's customs agency which last year resulted in overpayments of export duties, the company said Wednesday.

"All issues are principally settled, we have no claims. The Custom Service doesn't owe us anything more," Gazprom's export unit said.

Gazprom didn't say how much had been returned to the company, but the Federal Customs Service said earlier Wednesday it had refunded Gazprom 46 billion rubles ($1.5 billion), the Interfax news agency reported.

-By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]

Moscow Times: Customs Repays Gazprom

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/customs-repays-gazprom/406931.html
27 May 2010

The Federal Customs Service reimbursed Gazprom 46 billion rubles ($1.5 billion) of duties after the gas export monopoly challenged payment rules on fuel supplies to Europe, service director Andrei Belyaninov said Wednesday.

“The customs service doesn’t have any debt to Gazprom,” Belyaninov said. “We’ve repaid everything we owed them since the beginning of the year.”

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the spat was “settled in principle. We have no claims.

(Bloomberg)

VTB Capital: Customs Service repays USD 1.5bn to Gazprom

http://www.businessneweurope.eu/dispatch_text11737

VTB Capital

27 May 2010

News: According to Interfax, Andrei Belyaninov, Chief of the Federal Customs Services (FCS) said that the service had repaid a RUB 46bn (USD 1.5bn) debt for overpaid export duty to Gazprom. The debt appeared as the FCSs customs had increased advance payments that Gazprom had to make for gas exports in September-December 2009 to 100% from 50%.

Our View: The news was expected, given that in February 2010 when Gazprom reported its 4Q09 financials, the company had already mentioned that the conflict with FCS was over and that they were waiting for the refund from the service. The refund is likely to enable Gazprom to decrease its working capital in 1H10, which was under pressure through 2009 partly due to additional accruals made as a result of the dispute with Customs Service. Thus, the companys cash flow from operating activity might increase USD 1.5bn this year, which is likely to be welcomed by the market. For 9mo09, Gazprom demonstrated zero free cash flow, disappointing the market.