MOSCOW, January 14 (RIA Novosti)
Ukraine, Russia are taxing Europe's patience / Russian-U.S. tensions increase in Arctic stand-off / Kyrgyzstan will have to stop maneuvering between Moscow and Washington / Russian companies resort to foreign currency speculation /
RBC Daily, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Vedomosti
Ukraine, Russia are taxing Europe's patience
Gazprom started supplying gas into Ukraine's gas transportation system yesterday morning, but the gas has not reached its European clients because Ukraine blocked its transit. The Russian energy giant said Ukraine had stolen the "technical" gas.
Ukraine is not in a hurry to resume gas transit to Europe, claiming that Gazprom must provide at least 140 million cubic meters of gas to ensure transit.
"This can mean only one thing - the Russian gas that is currently in Ukraine's transit pipelines has been stolen," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said.
Konstantin Borodin, head of the Kiev-based Center for Energy Studies, said Europe might have to wait several months for Russian gas, until Ukraine's gas requirements go down. Ukraine has no gas for transit now, although it has gas in its storage tanks. It does not belong to state structures, but this has never stopped the Ukrainian authorities.
Dmitry Aleksandrov, leading analyst at the Financial Bridge investment company, said Russia and Ukraine were clearly unwilling to stop the gas war.
"Gazprom refuses to forego its principles, whereas Ukraine is acting irresponsibly because it has nothing to lose - it has accumulated enough gas for domestic consumption," Aleksandrov said. "Kiev doesn't care about the possible risks, which it will not pay from its own wallet anyway."
"I think Gazprom will have to agree to a compromise to ensure that gas reaches Europe," the analyst said. "It may even turn out the debtor, because suits may be filed against it."
"The gas crisis will spur the implementation of Russia's Nord Stream project, with Ukraine losing the status of Gazprom's main transit country by 2013," Borodin said.
Pierre Noel, a researcher of energy economics and policy at the University of Cambridge, said that in this situation Europe might invest heavily in lowering its dependence on Russian gas.
Valery Nesterov of Troika Dialog said Europe's chances to diversify its gas supplies should not be overestimated. At the worst, the gas conflict will prevent Gazprom from increasing its share on the European natural gas market to 33% from 26%, he said.
Kommersant
Russian-U.S. tensions increase in Arctic stand-off
On Monday, the White House released a long-awaited document broadly laying out U.S. policy toward the Arctic. The presidential directive was issued with just over a week to go for the Bush administration.
The new policy calls for Senate ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, the legal framework for activities in much of the Arctic, because the United States is not yet a party.
The Russian Security Council has also drafted a new strategy for developing the Arctic. The strategy implies that Russia will not cede the Arctic to anyone, famous Arctic explorer and presidential envoy for international cooperation in the Arctic and the Antarctic Arthur Chilingarov told the paper.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the Arctic Ocean accounted for an estimated 20% of the world's oil and gas deposits.
A Foreign Ministry source said a demand to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was the most important aspect of the White House directive. The United States is the only Arctic nation that has failed to ratify the convention. This also hindered the incipient international division of the Arctic.
On Tuesday, Chilingarov said Russia would continue to expand its presence in the Arctic, and that it could submit the required documents substantiating its claims to the North Pole to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in a year's time.
Previously, Chilingarov said Russia could withdraw from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea if the UN did not recognize its claims to the North Pole.
"The 'Arctic front' will become an objective reality in the next few years because the stakes are too high," Andrei Fyodorov, political-programs director at the Defense and Foreign Policy Council, told the paper.
He said Russia currently had better positions than other nations, but that this situation would not last long.
Gazeta.ru
Kyrgyzstan will have to stop maneuvering between Moscow and Washington
Kyrgyzstan might ask the Americans to vacate their air base outside Bishkek. The announcement is expected to be made ahead of a visit by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to Moscow. It is only in exchange for a quarrel with the United States that Russia will allocate Kyrgyzstan the promised $2 billion loan, said a source in Bishkek.
But any and all talk of an early closure of the U.S. base at Bishkek's Manas airport has been so far unofficial. According to sources, the Kyrgyz president was scheduled to arrive on January 16, but the date has been pushed back and could now be January 20.
In Moscow, the two countries are to sign an agreement granting Kyrgyzstan a $2 billion easy-term loan. Part of the loan, which Kyrgyz Prime Minister Igor Chudinov negotiated in December in Moscow and that amounts to $1.7 billion, will be used to construct the Kambaratinsky hydro power plants, and $300 million will go into supporting Kyrgyzstan's state budget. In addition, Bishkek expects a sizeable write-off of its external debt to Russia, which exceeds $180 million.
It is for the sake of this loan that Bakiyev has decided to sacrifice the favor of the U.S. and several tens of millions of dollars paid for the lease of the base.
The U.S. base was opened in 2001 to support NATO's operation in Afghanistan. It employs 1,500 Americans and provides basing facilities for military transport and refueling aircraft. With a similar base closed in Uzbekistan in 2005, Manas is now the key to the continued operation in Afghanistan. Russia's Kant air base is located not far from the American one, and this has always unnerved Moscow.
"The situation in the country has reached boiling point. To avoid a repeat of the tulip revolution, the main reliance must be put on the chief donor, Russia," says Alexei Vlasov, general director of Moscow State University Center for Study of Social and Political Processes in the CIS.
According to Vladimir Yevseyev, senior research assistant at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Bishkek has repeatedly bargained for increased rent payments for the base, and now it could be a matter of money, too: "The Americans would find it more convenient to increase the rent. It is not ruled out that Bakiyev might be using this as a bargaining chip."
Vedomosti
Russian companies resort to foreign currency speculation
Net capital outflow was $129.9 billion last year, according to the Russian monetary regulator. Russian companies bought more foreign currency during the fourth quarter of 2008 than they had sold over the past two years.
The three months of the economic crisis saw banks shedding debts at a rate close to that of boosting their foreign currency assets ($28.1 billion and $28.2 billion, respectively) whereas companies' assets exceeded their liabilities seven-fold.
Banks were watched by the regulator, while companies could siphon off their cash into foreign currency, explained Yevgeny Nadorshin, senior analyst at the Trust bank.
This policy is a natural solution amid national currency depreciation and speculation on the exchange rate fluctuations, Nadorshin went on. "With a depreciation rate of 1.5% a day, like the day before yesterday, the potential annual income is 1,800%!" he said.
Smaller companies try to convert their floating assets into foreign currency when they expect depreciation, even if doing so harms their business, said Andrei Kuzmin, a strategist with the Troika Dialog brokerage.
The senior vice president of Samara Pervobank Denis Khadeyev said companies had been buying foreign currency from his bank in December ten times more intensively than before.
Vladimir Sklyarevsky, Skif Investment Company's Director General, admitted that the company had been actively converting free funds into foreign currency since November.
Customers of the St Petersburg branch of Gazprombank engaged in foreign trade are trying to slow down the disposal of their foreign-currency revenues by delaying ruble settlements with their Russian partners, said Olga Dragomiretskaya, a bank manager.
Capital outflow reached $150 billion in June through November, while Russia's international reserves decreased at nearly the same rate. Around a half of the amount went to repay Russia's foreign debt, said Uralsib economist Vladimir Tikhomirov, as businesses tried to clear their debts ahead of time while they could still refinance them on the domestic market.
Foreign debt dropped by 60% in 2008. This year, companies will have to pay back another $120 billion, about a half of what they paid in the second half of 2008. Capital outflow will decrease, Tikhomirov added, and so will the need to refinance it through selling reserves.
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