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By John Helmer, Moscow The attempt by the Evraz steel group, owned by Roman Abramovich and others, to sell its South African steelmaking asset, Highveld Steel & Vanadium, for double its market value appears to have failed. The deadline Evraz had earlier announced for closing the deal with a South African front company called Nemascore […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow In a hearing in a Lagos court yesterday, Nigerian judge James Tsoho dismissed all charges against eight of the 15 Russian crewmen on the Myre Seadiver, a security support vessel arrested by the Nigerian Navy last October. At the time, the vessel, which had arrived with Nigerian Navy and Lagos port […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Eurochem, a Russian fertilizer miner and manufacturer owned by Andrei Melnichenko, is suing the South African mine technology company Shaft Sinkers for $800 million on account of a mining technology which Eurochem says has failed in Volgograd (image right). Shaft Sinkers says the technology works perfectly well, in Yorkshire (left) for […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow There has been no movement in Evraz’s proposed sale of its South African unit, Highveld Steel & Vanadium, to Nemascore, a special purpose vehicle created in February by a black empowerment enterprise linked to South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma (right). The deal for $320 million was announced by Evraz in March. […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow “I have always been fond of the West African proverb, ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick; and you will go far.’” That was Theodore Roosevelt in January 1900, when he was thinking of the Caribbean Sea, and when he was US Vice President. No one has ever found the evidence […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The Nigerian judge Okechukwu Okeke has retired from his Lagos court rather than appear for the trial, scheduled in Lagos on April 30, of the Russian crew of the security tender, Myre Seadiver. Sources in Lagos told Fairplay the trial has been postponed for a second time on account of the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Announcing its sale of the South African asset, Highveld Steel & Vanadium, to Nemascore, a company created just weeks before, Evraz issued the following announcement: “EVRAZ announces intention to sell its South African steel mill. EVRAZ plc…announces the signing of a non-binding term sheet in respect of the proposed sale of […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow United Company Rusal appears to have been stripping assets from the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (Alscon) at the same time as it was creating large loan obligations which the loss-making smelter has little chance of repaying. Public protests got under way at Alscon, which is located at Ikot Abasi, in […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Nemascore, the South African buyer of Evraz Highveld, the loss-making steel and vanadium producer, is run by a part-time lawyer, a part-time entrepreneur, and the part-time executive of Fire Check, a Durban-based company specializing for the past twenty years in installing home and office fire alarms around that east coast city. […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Nigerian judge, Okechukwu Okeke, failed to show up in his Lagos court yesterday for the scheduled trial on arms smuggling charges of the crew of the Myre Seadiver. There was no explanation for his non-appearance.