MOSCOW, July 28 (RIA Novosti)
Gazprom signs gas price agreements with Turkmenistan / Daimler may buy 42% of Kamaz / Russians do not want to emigrate / FATF says Russian financial intelligence among the world's best / Ex-Soviet states to fortify borders against U.S. missile shield
Kommersant
Gazprom signs gas price agreements with Turkmenistan
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom will buy Turkmen gas at $225-$295 per 1,000 cubic meters in 2009, a considerable increase from $140 this year. It will also issue interest-free loans for several local gas projects to retain control over Turkmen gas.
Two basic gas acquisition agreements were signed on Friday during a working visit of Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller to Turkmenistan. They cover gas prices, and stipulate a transition to market principles for pricing under Gazprom's long-term contract with Turkmenistan until 2028. Under the other agreement, the gas monopoly will issue interest-free loans for Turkmen projects.
A high-ranking source told the business daily Kommersant on the condition of anonymity that the agreements stipulate several pricing principles. According to one of them, the price is calculated on the basis of the average European wholesale gas price, domestic Ukrainian prices and prices in southern Russia taken in equal proportions. The other provides for calculating the price on the basis of European and Ukrainian prices taken in equal proportions.
Spending on transportation is detracted from the base price and numerous additional coefficients are added to it, the source said.
Valery Nesterov, an analyst at the Troika Dialog investment company, said: "Gazprom will not lose one way or another, because it will shift additional spending on to Ukraine."
If the price formula includes the low gas prices in southern Russia ($70-$80 per 1,000 cubic meters), and given the current average gas price of $410 in Europe, the purchasing price for Turkmen gas will be $225 or $295. In the former case, Gazprom will pay $9.45 billion more and in the latter case, $12.4 billion more for gas in 2009.
According to Turkmen state television, Gazprom will also finance and build gas transportation projects and develop gas fields in Turkmenistan.
Miller said: "Under the agreements reached, Gazprom will finance and build main gas pipelines from the country's eastern regions and increase the capacity of the Turkmen part of the Caspian pipeline to 30 billion cubic meters."
The volume of financing has not been reported, but Mikhail Korchemkin, the founder and managing director of the consulting company East European Gas Analysis, said the projects would cost Gazprom $4-$6 billion.
He said the energy giant would have to borrow the money on the market at 6%-8% annual interest. In other words, it will annually provide $240-$480 million to Turkmenistan.
But this will allow Russia to retain control over Turkmen gas export.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov said during his meeting with Miller that his country was resolved to maintain friendship with Russia. Recalling his meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on July 4-5, he said: "Gazprom has been Turkmenistan's leading strategic partner."
A top manager from Gazprom told Kommersant that the talks with Turkmenistan were difficult, and that Gazprom's deputy CEO, Valery Golubev, spent a week there hammering out details of the agreements.
"There were several variants; I don't know which of them they have signed," he said. "The Turkmen partners drove a hard bargain. I think Alexei Miller had to make some concessions in order to buy all of Turkmen gas and honor the political agreements between Russia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine."
This was the third Gazprom visit to Turkmenistan this summer.
Vedomosti
Daimler may buy 42% of Kamaz
The truck division of Germany's Daimler AG, or Daimler Trucks, is currently negotiating with Troika Dialog the purchase of a 42% stake in Kamaz, Russia's largest truck maker, Daimler said on Friday.
Troika confirmed that Daimler is Troika's exclusive partner in the talks. Daimler has initiated a "due diligence" probe into Kamaz's operations. The sides may close the deal before the end of the year.
Troika became Kamaz's largest shareholder (54.4%) in April. To the 21.2% it already had, the firm added 33.2% obtained through Avtoinvest Ltd., part of Troika Group, which bought a stake in Kamaz Capital. Sources close to Troika pledged that Troika will not hold the stake long, and a foreign truckmaker - Volvo, Iveco, Daimler, MAN, Scania or DAF - will buy its more than 25% stake.
A source close to Troika said Daimler had offered the most profitable terms. An audit is expected to be completed by the end of September or the beginning of October, and will make clear the size of the deal, said the Troika source. A 42% stake in Kamaz traded at 43.05 billion rubles ($1.84 billion) on the Moscow Inter-Bank Currency Exchange on Friday.
Daimler will pay a premium for entrance to the Russian and CIS market, said Mikhail Pak of Metropol Investment Financial Company Ltd. He estimates the deal at $1.9-2.1 billion.
Troika will be left with 12.4% of Kamaz, this stake containing an unexercised option of management led by director general Sergei Kogogin. Troika president Ruben Vardanyan acknowledged the existence of the option but would not reveal its size.
Daimler could increase the stake by purchasing 42%, with the company having to announce an offer. The amount remaining on the market is 7.8%, with 3.6% held by minority shareholders and 1.5% by former Kamaz staff, said Kamaz corporate director Yelena Milinova.
The size of a stake for the strategic holder is calculated in such a way, said a source close to Kamaz's management, that Troika's remaining 12.4% stake and a 37.8% state-owned stake handed down to Russian Technologies by a presidential decree add up to 50.2%. Daimler will have the rights of a majority shareholder, but control will stay with two friendly Russian companies, he said.
The sale of a stake to an investment strategist among overseas truck producers is sorely needed by Kamaz, said Renaissance Capital analyst Eduard Faritov and Yevgeny Bogdanov, head of automotive practice at A.T.Kearney: "Kamaz turns out outdated models, and in a few years' time could start giving up positions to foreign companies building plants in Russia."
RBC Daily
Russians do not want to emigrate
Only 8% of Russians want to emigrate, last week's All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) poll shows. Most Russian citizens would leave their country only temporarily for recreation, income or education. Experts say this is a result of the current political and economic stability.
The poll was a response to research of Russia's middle class carried out by the Yuri Levada Analytical Center a month ago. That poll, ordered by the EU-Russia analytical center, revealed that almost half of Russian city-dwellers with a monthly income of between 500 and 1,500 euros are ready to leave Russia forever, anytime, taking their savings with them. An unexpectedly heated response from those who read the survey forced the Levada Center to deflate some of their own conclusions. A press release issued July 9 said, the term "middle class" used in the research was approximate and is in no way related to the European "middle class", and that emigration is less popular than previously indicated.
Last Friday VTsIOM published its own poll's results, which show that half of Russians surveyed do not want to leave for other countries, a third of the population would like to travel abroad, 9% would like to work abroad, and 4% would like to get an education abroad. Only 8% of those surveyed were in favor of emigrating.
Sociologists found that Russians consider Germany the best country in which to live, Great Britain to get an education, and the U.S. to work. Respondents wishing to leave Russia permanently would prefer to move to Germany (18%) or the U.S. (14%). They also consider these two countries the best place to work. Russians would prefer to study in Great Britain (40%) and the U.S. (16%). For travel, the most popular choices were France (13%) and Italy (11%).
VTsIOM general director Valery Fyodorov says emigration is people's reaction to a crisis striking their home country. In previous years, almost 20% of Russians surveyed said they would move abroad. Fyodorov says several factors, including the current stability, ten years of growth in the economy and people getting used to the new "rules of play," decreased that figure. Russians adhere to the principle "leave well enough alone", Fyodorov says.
Novye Izvestia
FATF says Russian financial intelligence among the world's best
The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) has declared the Russian Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) one of the best and most effective in the world, Yury Chikhanchin, head of the service, said on Friday.
Officially, Russia is complying with FATF recommendations on a par with the other G8 countries, although analysts say hundreds of billions of dollars are laundered in the country.
In September 2007, Russia hosted a commission of FATF experts and specialists from other organizations, who studied compliance of Russian anti-money laundering legislation with international law. Nearly a year later, the FATF has published its report.
Chikhanchin, who presented the report's main findings on Friday, said Russia's anti-money laundering rating with the FATF is close to that of Sweden, Canada and Italy.
Russia fully observes 10, largely observes 13 and partially observes 21 FATF recommendations, and fails to observe only three recommendations. According to Rosfinmonitoring, the United States does not observe four, Italy six, and Canada 11 FATF recommendations.
Chikhanchin said: "Rosfinmonitoring has received top ranking among financial intelligences, which puts it on a par with the Belgian financial monitoring service."
However, independent analysts say the volume of money laundered in Russia has not diminished.
Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anticorruption Committee, said that as much as $70 million is laundered in Moscow banks daily, even though the financial monitoring service complies with all FATF recommendations. However, in conditions of systemic corruption its operation serves as a cover for international organizations, and only creates an illusion that everything is fine.
Yelena Panfilova, head of Transparency International, a global civil society organization leading the fight against corruption, said: "Rosfinmonitoring is a strange organization. It observes FATF recommendations and at the same time complies with Russian legislation."
Panfilova said the Financial Monitoring Service has no right to investigate suspect cases, which it must turn over to law enforcement agencies, where they often wither away before reaching a court.
Nikita Krichevsky, research head of the National Strategy Institute, said: "There is a huge gap between reporting and the real situation in the economy. The truth is that certain bodies of authority protect a part of Russian banks and their grey schemes."
These bodies do not want to expose their crimes and therefore present "clean" reports to the FATF, which gives high marks to Russia's anti-money laundering efforts.
Krichevsky said money laundering mechanisms had greatly improved.
"Russian banks launder as much as $200 billion a year. According to the World Bank, the grey sector accounts for 49% of Russia's GDP, yet Russia may soon receive the same high FATF ranking as the leading countries, Denmark and New Zealand, unless the transparency of the reports we supply to the FATF is improved," he said.
Gazeta
Ex-Soviet states to fortify borders against U.S. missile shield
Nikolai Bordyuzha, secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), said on Friday that a new military structure would be set up on the western borders of treaty member states in response to the installation of elements of a U.S. anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
"This is one of the elements of our work on the boundaries of CSTO member states to establish a new military infrastructure and restore some of its Soviet-era elements," he said vaguely.
He expressed CSTO member states' concern that they are being surrounded with strategic military installations which, given desire, could be transformed from defensive into offensive weapons.
"Naturally, this is having a serious effect on security and, of course, we are taking it into account in our efforts," Bordyuzha said.
His words make it clear that the military grouping will be set up on the western frontiers of Belarus and Russia. Other countries on that sector, Ukraine and Moldova, belong to the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, or GUAM (its other members are Georgia and Azerbaijan).
Colonel General Viktor Yesin, first vice president of the Academy of Security, Defense and Law, believes the idea is to site Iskander-M missile systems in Belarus, which could engage missile defense elements in the Czech Republic.
"If it were decided to deploy Iskanders in the Kaliningrad Region, their impact zone would include only anti-missile facilities in Poland, and if they were deployed in Belarus, they could reach only a radar in the Czech Republic," the colonel general told Gazeta.
He said that another retaliatory step could be to use the Machulishchi air base, 100 kilometers from Minsk, for deploying strategic bombers. Yesin said mobile Topol missiles were once based in Belarus during Soviet times. But he said he was sure no one would deploy either these or new Topol-M systems now.
Colonel (Ret.) Vitaly Shlykov of the Main Intelligence Department, who is a member of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, said the new military grouping could be formed by deploying mixed-manned special units on western borders of CSTO member states and establishing a common early warning system. However, Shlykov said he doubted the wisdom of such a step and believed implementation of these military ideas would be stopped for political reasons.
Meanwhile, the new military structure mentioned by Bordyuzha could become a reality as early as a month from now, following meetings held by the CSTO statutory bodies. These are planned for the end of August and the beginning of September and will be attended by defense, finance and foreign ministers, as well as secretaries of security councils and presidents of CSTO member states.
Last week, consultations were held in Moscow on such meetings. Representatives of CSTO member states examined 20 working documents to be signed in the fall, including an agreement on the joint training of personnel for secret services drawn up on the lines of an existing military agreement, and a treaty on an inter-state task group to set up a system for technical protection of the rail network of CSTO member states.
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