MOSCOW, December 19 (RIA Novosti)
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Duma stops being political debate site - experts
A lot of party congresses, conferences and meetings of small parties not represented in the State Duma were held last week on the right flank of the Russian political spectrum. However, these events drew much more attention than deputies' activities.
Alexei Arbatov, learned council member of the Moscow Carnegie Center: "The parties not represented in the State Duma are just obliged to formulate the position on main domestic and foreign policies, otherwise they will be finally forgotten. However, the parliament's role is confined to the function of rubber-stamping all the documents issued by the executive branch of authority. The Duma has stopped being a political debate site because of the artificially created majority of the ruling party."
Gennady Gudkov, deputy chairman of the State Duma security committee: "The split right and left wings represent not so much parties as PR projects which are being increasingly played up but regrettably have no real effect on politics. Currently, all financial, organizational and other resources are concentrated in one place, namely, the Kremlin. Parties other than those formed by the Kremlin have no influence whatsoever. All the rest are just creating the background against which debates seem to be going on."
Pavel Krasheninnikov, chairman of the State Duma legislation committee: "As United Russia turned out to be the rightmost and the most liberal of all parliamentary parties, the rival parties which lost the election, as well as their leaders, are going out of their way to position themselves as truly right wing parties."
Nikita Belykh, leader of the Union of Right Forces party: "The very idea of parliamentarism has been discredited and the Duma has turned into a kind of appendage to the executive branch. The Duma passes all the decisions proposed by the executive branch practically without debates. However, political parties not represented in parliament are trying to conduct practical work with civil society."
Novye Izvestia
Kommersant
Kasyanov loses battle for leadership in Russia's Democratic Party
Russian former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov failed to become leader of the Democratic Party of Russia. Witnesses say big money was used to neutralize his supporters at the Saturday congress of Russia's oldest democratic party.
One of the delegates told Novye Izvestia that he accepted $10,000. "Wouldn't you do the same?" he asked.
Mikhail Karatunov, head of the party's branch in the republic of Altai, said Frants Klintsevich, presidium member of United Russia's General Council, had promised the party a green light in registration and the media if the congress voted to make Central Committee chairman Andrei Bogdanov the party leader.
Dzhambul Abesadze, a delegate from the Altai territory, said: "Bogdanov personally offered me $10,000."
Yevgeny Fotiadi, a representative of the party's Krasnodar branch, told Kommersant: "The party is being turned into a subsidiary of United Russia. They fear Kasyanov and are doing everything possible to neutralize him. The Democratic Party is dead."
Alexei Mukhin, director of the Center for Political Information, said Kasyanov's defeat in the battle for party leadership would not seriously harm him. "The Democratic Party is too small" for the former prime minister, he said. "Moreover, a reserve party is ready for him, the Our Choice Party of Irina Khakamada."
Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the Center for Political Technologies, said that the former prime minister did not accept his loss well. "A politician should not look ridiculous. But Kasyanov is a very serious negotiator and will not admit defeat."
Makarkin said the former prime minister was embarrassed and therefore took timeout. "He has become an outsider; everyone has a party except him. Kasyanov may gradually turn from a heavyweight into a scandalous figure," the political scientist said.
Vremya Novostei
EADS buys into Irkut
The European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) has bought a 10% stake in the Russian aviation major, Irkut, for 55 million euros. EADS expects this deal to promote the European A-350 long-haul aircraft that is competing against the U.S. Boeing 787 in the Russian market.
In 2004 Irkut signed a ten-year contract with EADS for the delivery of components for the A-320. The EADS Irkut Seaplane joint venture was set up in 2005 to advance the Russian Be-200 seaplane on Western markets.
Vadim Vlasov, general director of OOO EADS (the Russian subsidiary of EADS), said the European company offered cooperation in three other areas related to Airbus civilian aircraft. Irkut can produce components for the new A-350 aircraft (commercial deliveries are to begin in 2010), as well as contribute to the joint construction of a promising medium-haul aircraft that would replace the A-320. Airbus will start creating the new plane after completing the A-350 project. And lastly, Irkut has been offered the right to participate in a program that will convert the scrapped A-320 aircraft into freighters.
In response, EADS expects Russia to do more than Irkut management can. Aeroflot, Russia's national carrier 51% owned by the Russian government, is holding a tender for new long-haul aircraft worth $2-$3 billion. The carrier is choosing between the A-350 and the Boeing 787 (the latter promises to be slightly cheaper than A-350 and is to be operational two years ahead of it, in 2008).
Vlasov said that the acquisition of A-350s by Aeroflot was the requisite condition for Irkut's admission to the production programs of Airbus and EADS.
Gazeta
Russian state-owned majors intensify fight for promising fields
The leading players on the Russian hydrocarbon market, state-owned Gazprom and Rosneft, confronted each other in the battle for the East Sugda oil and gas property, the largest in East Siberia. The winning Rosneft paid as much as 7.47 billion rubles or 25 times higher than the initial asking price for the right to develop the field. Experts say that its real value is 20% lower. Analysts maintain that in the majors' standoff the price could have soared even higher, but thanks to their preliminary agreements on cooperation in East Siberia and the Far East it didn't.
Proven reserves of East Sugda are estimated at some 60-150 million tons of oil and 42 billion cu m of gas. Apparently, the companies knew from the start that it would be too costly to develop it independently. One of the reasons is lack of infrastructure in the remote region.
Gazprom and Rosneft have promised to sign an official cooperation agreement in the near future. Market players believe that other companies, including those that competed in the auction, may join the agreement. An informed source in Rosneft says that the oil major may develop the field with Surgutneftegaz and TNK-BP.
Rivalry between the two state-owned majors is becoming increasingly obvious. For Rosneft, it was important to purchase East Sugda ahead of its 2006 IPO on the foreign exchange, by which it wants to boost its oil reserves. As for Gazprom, having purchased Sibneft, it has been striving to expand its oil business. Analysts say that very soon the two companies will be often confronting each other, fighting for the country's most promising fields.
Vedomosti
State to give a leg up to Russia's main automaker
Boris Alyoshin, a future member of Avtovaz's board of directors and head of the Federal Industrial Agency (Rosprom), is making plans to develop the plant and the auto industry in general, which will provide unprecedented measures of state support.
A shareholders' meeting this week will approve placing the plant under state control: on December 22 its board of directors will be re-elected and representatives of the state will get the majority. The new board will include representatives of the unitary enterprise Rosoboronexport, Vneshtorgbank and the head of the Federal Industrial Agency, who will be responsible for the auto manufacturer's overall strategy.
Revamping Avtovaz's product line, because the plant is described as "a national state corporation" in the document, will take $2.5-3 billion, with another $1.5-1.8 billion required to develop and start the production of an engine family of up to 2 liters in capacity. Avtovaz itself can invest no more than 700 million rubles ($24.43 million, or €20.38 million) a year.
In the official's view, some of the bill should be footed by the treasury. To do so the automobile industry development plan must be given the status of a special federal program. Its financing is to get a separate spending line in the budget. Alyoshin concedes that later Avtovaz may hold an IPO, but now what the industry needs is state protection.
These measures would help Avtovaz to keep its part of the market now that it may get money for launching new models, acknowledges Yelena Sakhnova, an analyst with the United Financial Group. She forecasts that by 2010 the share will fall from the current 45% to 32%.
Igor Korovkin, head of the technical committee of the Association of Russian Automakers, remarks that Alyoshin's views on the automobile industry may not be consistent with those of Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref.
Troika Dialog brokerage chief economist Yevgeny Gavrilenkov is skeptical about the state taking over the plant. If granted to Avtovaz, a duty-free import of auto components, "would be a non-market step, and besides the competition was making the plant stir somehow," noted the expert.
Biznes
Diamond monopolist to expand into oil refining
Alrosa, Russia's monopolist diamond producer may become a serious player in the regional oil market.
Its president Alexander Nichiporuk said that within two years Alrosa would build an oil refining facility in Mirny with a capacity of 250,000 tons of oil annually. The construction will cost about 4 billion rubles ($139.62 million), out of which 2.5 billion ($87.26 million) has already been invested in equipment. It has been discovered that the equipment has been stored at the company warehouses for ten years. Nichiporuk believes that the new facility will start paying off in four years.
It will service Alrosa's Lenskoye deposit and produce an entire range of petrochemicals except engine oils, he said. Alrosa will use the products for its own needs. For example, bitumen will be used to build roads in Yakutia.
Dmitry Baranov, head analyst at PRADO Banker & Consultant, says that the need for petrochemical production may be caused by Alrosa's shaken partnership agreements with Yukos. "This looks very much like the purchase of new deposits," he says. "Then you need fuel and build roads and even might help local authorities to build railways."
Nichiporuk said that Alrosa was also interested in Yakutgeofizika, which has plenty of information on oil and gas fields in Yakutia, which, Baranov argues, also suggests that the company wants to diversify into the oil and gas sector.
However, Igor Nuzhdin of the Solid investment company does not believe that the diamond producer will succeed in its new business: this sector has long been divided among oil majors. "The scale of this refinery is a drop in the ocean compared to the current capacity of Russian refineries of 200 million tons annually (mere 0.12%)," he argues.
