MOSCOW, January 16 (RIA Novosti)
Transits to Europe hinge on gas supply agreement with Ukraine/Europe considers new pipeline plans/ Magna on the lookout for new assets in Russia/ Gerhard Schroeder hired as an independent director of TNK-BP
Gazeta.ru
Transits to Europe hinge on gas supply agreement with Ukraine
Ukraine has decided to demonstrate its strength and fight in this year's gas conflict with Russia, using its advantage of being the largest transit route for Russian natural gas to Europe, a Russian analyst writes.
Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the Moscow-based magazine Russia in Global Affairs, writes that if you follow the logic of the conflict gas transits will only resume once Russia signs a gas supply contract with Ukraine, because otherwise Kiev will lose its main instrument of pressuring Russia.
In the past, the Kremlin was the attacker in gas wars with Ukraine, forcing Kiev to react to its moves, the analyst writes. But this year Ukraine, which postponed payment of its gas debts until the last possible day and then walked out of the talks, decided to bring the situation to a head. All its other moves were designed to ensure the conflict became a European issue.
Ukraine is playing an all-or-nothing game, hoping - with good reason - that Europe will blame Russia, Lukyanov writes. Ukraine expects that this will make Russia more flexible or that Europe will start to pressure it.
Russian energy giant Gazprom, which acted from a position of strength, has been taken by surprise and landed in Ukraine's ambush. When Russia shut off the gas taps it provoked a large-scale crisis involving other parties, increasingly reluctant to point to who is to blame for the failure of gas deliveries to reach them.
According to Lukyanov, Kiev has nothing to lose, because it is Gazprom that is Europe's partner and will therefore be made to pay, one way or another.
Ukraine has very few, if any, chances of joining the EU or NATO, and so the warning by Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, that rapprochement with the EU demanded it behave properly with transits has left it unconcerned.
As for its reputation, this can hardly be applied to the current Ukrainian leadership.
Lukyanov says that Russia has again raised the idea first put forward in the early 2000s on the transfer of Ukraine's gas transportation system to outside control. The analyst writes that Russia has done this openly, as only Vladimir Putin can do.
The idea is possible, judging by the response from Washington, but Moscow will not necessarily be among those involved in external management, Lukyanov concludes.
RBC Daily
Europe considers new pipeline plans
The Russian-Ukrainian gas talks will probably get started on Saturday when Moscow hosts a summit of Russian gas consumer countries at the proposal of President Dmitry Medvedev.
Europe seems determined to push on with new pipeline projects to diversify its gas supplies in any case, regardless of when and how the Russian-Ukrainian conflict ends.
A thorough analysis conducted by leading European energy experts in the past 24 hours has shown that the EU won't be able to maintain its progressive economic and social development over the past 20 years without Russian gas. The experts have concluded that Russian gas is currently irreplaceable and that the only solution to the Ukrainian problem for them is to arrange direct imports from Russia.
The Czech Republic, currently holding the rotating EU presidency, has supported the planned summit to promote the Nabucco project. However, Czech Ambassador to Russia Miroslav Kostelka also recognized the need to implement Russia-backed projects Nord Stream and South Stream.
The main objection to the Nabucco project is a problem with insufficient gas, said Sergei Pravosudov, director of the National Energy Institute think tank. Using gas from Iran may solve this problem, but Europeans are wary of dealing with the country because of U.S. sanctions.
Given that European nations have not ventured to provide any financing for Nabucco in more financial prosperous times, they are even more unlikely to consolidate and raise the required 8 billion euros during the global financial crisis, said Vitaly Gromadin from the Arbat Capital brokerage.
It is much more probable that they will allow Gazprom to go ahead with its Stream projects, which will eventually shrink Ukraine's share of Russian gas transit to the same level as Belarus or lower, he added.
Vedomosti
Magna on the lookout for new assets in Russia
At crisis time, Russia could become an attractive market for auto component manufacturers. According to Don Walker, Magna co-chief executive, the Canadian auto parts maker is exploring possibilities for acquiring new assets in Russia to diversify its business and reduce its contracts with auto producers in North America.
Magna started work in Russia in 2006. With AvtoVAZ, it planned to build a new C car platform plant in Togliatti, but those involved did not get beyond the development phase. Now Magna is building a plastics factory in St. Petersburg and planning another in Kaluga. At the end of 2008, it leased a workshop at the Izhora plant to manufacture plastic parts. In December, Magna purchased Nizhny Novgorod's Tekhnoplast, which produces car bumpers, radiator grills, door and front panels, central consoles, and roof covers.
Magna may select any auto component company, believes Mikhail Blokhin, deputy director of NAPAK (the National Association of Automotive Component Manufacturers), but it is interested mainly in plastics and stampings. In the stampings, however, there is nothing available, believes Boris Lazebnik, director for strategic development at Interkos-IV (75% owned by the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant). And there are not many freely available plastics firms in the country. Maxim Simonov, general director and owner of Syzran's Plastik, says that Magna had made no moves to buy his factory.
Magna is unlikely to be the last component manufacturer eager for the Russian market, and the main reason is plunging sales abroad, believe Blokhin and Yevgeny Bogdanov, director of A.T.Kearney's Moscow office. In 2008, the U.S. market slumped by 18%, down to 13.2 million cars, while Russia's rose 16%, reaching 2.77 million sales.
About 75% of the world's auto companies surveyed by KPMG for its annual study believe that more than 10 foreign suppliers will start operations in Russia in the next two to three years. Blokhin is of the opinion that foreign companies will also find Russian plants a convenient place for export production.
Kommersant, RBC Daily, Vedomosti
Gerhard Schroeder hired as an independent director of TNK-BP
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, an old ally of the Russian government and Gazprom, has got a new job in Russia as one of the three independent directors at Russian-British oil venture TNK-BP with a salary of $200,000.
The parties concerned said the appointment was not linked to Gazprom's interest in the company or to government pressure, and is solely down to Schroeder's personal influence.
Appointing independent directors was one of the conditions of the settlement to the high-profile conflict between TNK-BP's shareholders and the AAR consortium. The partners have had a parity board until recently which prevented shareholders from making any important decisions.
The other independent directors will be future Rio Tinto mining company Chairman James Leng and Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
The former German chancellor has been heading the shareholders committee of Nord Stream (51% Gazprom, 20% each Wintershall Holding AG and E.ON Ruhrgas AG, and 9% N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie), the operator of the planned gas pipeline to link Russia and Europe under the Baltic Sea, since 2006. His job there is to promote political support for Nord Stream from the EU, where many countries are openly opposed to the project.
"I think BP could not clearly see who exactly was attacking it last summer, and therefore sought support from the Russian government," said Konstantin Simonov, head of Russia's National Energy Security Fund.
"The company has now found it badly needs a mediator, and Schroeder is the ideal solution," he said adding that, apart from his solid political and business reputation, "he has proved he is a loyal ally of the Russian government."
Sergei Vorobyov, managing partner of the Ward Howell consultancy, said that along with being "a friend of Russia," Schroeder was probably chosen also because he is not British.
A source close to the TNK-BP board confirmed that it was a significant reason, however denied that Schroeder was recommended by the Russian government.
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