MOSCOW, March 26 (RIA Novosti) Russia supports Security Council resolution, sends signal to Tehran/ British Petroleum may legitimatize Yukos's division/ Russia gets Polish food despite ban/ Russian to increase oil supply to China by 3 mln tons/ Police find pirates' soft spot
Vremya Novostei
Russia supports Security Council resolution, sends signal to Tehran
UN Security Council unity has been maintained, although Iran, seeing that Russia and China were not going to assist them, tried to recruit the support of less influential countries.
The unity was largely preserved thanks to the firm stance taken by Russia, which said sanctions against Iran should be toughened gradually, to prevent them from becoming excessive.
Tehran, irritated by the increasing rapprochement between the United States and Russia with regard to Iran's nuclear dossier, misinterpreted Moscow's decision.
"Iran is very unhappy with the resolution, which it regards as an infringement of international law and collusion by the leading powers in which Russia played an improper role," said Radzhab Safarov, director general of the Iranian Studies Center in Moscow, who knows the current mood of the Iranian leaders.
"It was Iran's main national goal - the nuclear program - that was at stake," Safarov said explaining Iran's stance. "Iranians have never entirely trusted Russia, but now they know for certain that there are no reliable partners in their quest for high technologies. The issue concerns serious competition, and Tehran will do its best to get independence in this sphere as soon as possible."
Viktor Mizin, an expert with the Russian Institute of Strategic Assessment and Analysis, said it was natural for Russia to support tougher sanctions. He said: "Tehran had been using Russia's desire to maintain good relations with Iran, an important Islamic state and its southern neighbor." However, now Moscow's policy is influenced by fear that "a new nuclear power may appear on its border."
Iran stubbornly refused to make concessions, and, logically, Moscow "became increasingly irritated that its efforts weren't bringing any results," Mizin said. "Russia voted for new sanctions not to punish Iran but to give a clear signal to its leaders that they should revise their stance."
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
British Petroleum may legitimatize Yukos's division
The sales of Yukos' assets, bankrupted last summer, could be even more successful than the Russian authorities and analysts anticipated. At the end of last week, Samotlorneftegaz, a subsidiary of the British-Russian joint venture TNK-BP, joined the action. Along with RN-Razvitiye, controlled by the state-run oil company Rosneft, Samotlorneftegaz submitted an application to participate in the auction for a 9.44% stake in Rosneft held by Yukos and Yuganskneftegaz's bills of exchange worth 3.6 billion rubles ($138.41 million). The participation by BP companies in the auction slated for March 27 legitimatizes the event.
TNK-BP's participation in the auction puts BP under judicial risks, said Tim Osborne, director of the Menatep Group, Yukos's main shareholder. However, loyalty to Russian authorities was more important for BP than the risk of court trials with Yukos's foreign shareholders.
Experts do not believe BP has a serious chance of victory at the auction reducing it to a role of bystander without which no auction is possible. Valery Nesterov, analyst with the Troika Dialog investment bank, believes that by agreeing to participate in the auction the British company wants to improve its positions at talks with the authorities on its business in Russia. TNK-BP is facing a far from easy task in its efforts to coordinate exploitation of the Kovykta deposit, with a several billion dollar budget, with Russian gas giant Gazprom. For this reason, state organizations' favorable attitude to BP will be useful at such talks.
TNK-BP is trying to show its serious intention to compete for Yukos's first lot, while Rosneft is talking about a real fight against a strong rival, but it is difficult to believe all the rumors, said Sebastian Leibe, head of projects at the 2K Audit- Business Consultations company.
Alexei Kontorovich, the former member of Yukos's board of directors, now director of the Institute of Oil and Gas Geology of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, sees no juridical problems for TNK-BP's participating in the auction. He believes TNK-BP may be confronted with more serious problems once the new law on mineral resources is adopted, when formal restrictions will be placed on the development of strategic deposits by foreign companies.
Novye Izvestia
Russia gets Polish food despite ban
The Russia-EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement expires this year; but Warsaw is obstructing the signing of a new document because Russia has banned all agricultural imports from Poland since the fall of 2005.
The ban was introduced due to violations of veterinary and phytosanitary standards. However, Polish meat, as well as frozen fruits and vegetables, can still be found in Russian supermarkets.
Sergei Dankvert, head of the Russian Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control Service (Rosselkhoznadzor), said Warsaw was hindering strategic cooperation between Russia and the European Union.
He said the EU requires each exporting country to abide by safety requirements whenever necessary. Poland, however, only complies with Russia when forced to do so. This amounts to double standards, Dankvert told the paper.
"We get Polish fruit and meat via Lithuania and Ukraine," a spokesman for a popular hypermarket chain said.
A source in a Polish fruit company said the Russian embargo had not had any negative influence on apple exports. "They have increased to such an extent in the past year, many companies are ready to invest millions of euros into new apple orchards," he said.
Rosselkhoznadzor said Russia gets Polish agricultural produce via Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics. "We believe an international group is helping to smuggle food products through third countries," Alexei Alexeyenko, deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor's international cooperation department, said.
He said Moscow will require supplier countries to list export companies in certificates to make it possible to impose sanctions against such companies, rather than entire countries.
Kommersant
Russian to increase oil supply to China by 3 mln tons
Russian state-owned oil major Rosneft and China's United Petroleum and Chemicals Co. Ltd. will tomorrow sign a contract on oil supplies to China via the Naushki border checkpoint. Russia will thereby increase its supply by 3 million metric tons. The new route may encourage Rosneft to buy the railway operator Yukos Transservice, used by the beleaguered oil major to supply oil by this route, market players say.
Last year, Russia supplied a total of 10.3 million metric tons of oil to China, according to the railway monopoly Russian Railways. Rosneft was the main supplier with 8.9 mln metric tons, delivering it via the Zabaikalsk-Manchuria checkpoint. However, Russia failed to supply the amount agreed by the two governments in 2004 - 15 million metric tons by 2006.
That agreement took into account the export potential of Yukos, which was the main oil supplier via Naushki. Supplies stopped in the autumn 2006.
Rosneft does not yet have the infrastructure to organize supplies along the new route. Oil shipments via Naushki were carried out by Yukos Transservice (YTS), which accounted for 13% of the Russian market for oil cargo shipments. "There is nothing to do on that route without YTS," said a market player. Alexei Grom, former director of YTS and now head of Transgarant, said that the company's main advantage was its fleet of 5,000 cisterns with steam heating, allowing oil to be transported all year.
The auction of YTS as part of the sale of Yukos's assets has yet to be scheduled, and its price has not been set. A source familiar with the situation says it is likely the company will be included in one lot along with other assets making up the technological chain of oil supply to China, such as a stake in the Russian-Mongolian joint venture Vostok Asia Transit. YTS' net profits for 2006 amounted to "about 1 billion rubles (about $38.5 million)," Grom said. This means that its value could be 8-10 billion rubles, said Vladimir Ashurkov, director for asset control with Alfa Group.
Market sources say that there is another potential buyer for YTS, Severstaltrans, which is a leading private provider of transportation services in Russia and former Soviet republics.
Vedomosti
Police find pirates' soft spot
The police are increasingly checking the software used by different companies and agencies. As confiscation of computers with unlicensed software means lost time and money for companies, many of them are rushing to buy licensed copies.
The office of the Judicial Agency of the Non-Commercial Partnership of Software Supplies is swamped with confiscated computers. The agency examines software at the request of prosecutors, said Anna Lavrinova, the Partnership's deputy CEO.
Vladimir Kalinichenko, CEO of the Chelyabinsk textile plant, said recent action had paralyzed the company for over a month. On the day of the inspection he had paid an invoice to buy licensed software from an official Microsoft dealer, but it did not stop prosecutors.
This month, the police and prosecutors have conducted mass inspections of insurance companies, said Jolanta Pranckeviciene, legal advisor for the Business Software Alliance, which unites the world's biggest software developers.
It is not hard to find pirated software: according to the IDC analytical company, the average rate of piracy among Russian companies was 71% in 2006. In the food industry it was 80%, in design and advertising 76%, in construction and production 74%. The oil and gas sector had a 66% rate and the banking and insurance sphere was 60% proving slightly more disciplined.
Police activities have already increased income for software producers. Sales of licensed copies of Windows and Office surged last month, said Kira Kiryukhina, PR manager with Microsoft. Sergei Suvorov, director for business development with Ultra Electronics, said it is now hard to find the latest version of Windows, Vista, in Russia. "Orders for software from companies and government structures have soared since the beginning of the year," said Felix Muchnik, CEO of Softkey. "The structure [of these orders] indicates that companies have checked their software and are buying licensed software where it is missing."
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